Novels 


Clu 

w 

theWoi 
Henstephe 


The 

Statue  in  the  Wood 

x 
By  Richard  Pryce 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 

«#  Cambrit>0e 
1918 


COPYRIGHT,   1918,    BY    RICHARD  PRYCB 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  Apri 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 
THE  FIRST  BOOK 


2137790 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 
BOOK  THE  FIRST 

CHAPTER    I 

ON  a  day  of  late  spring  or  early  summer,  when 
the  world  was  younger  by  some  years,  a  lady  of 
considerable  charm,  and  of  an  appearance  that 
demands  the  word  'fashionable'  for  its  adequate 
or  even  natural  qualification,  was  walking  through 
a  wood. 

She  was  not  dressed  in  such  a  way  as  a  woman  of 
these  days  would  have  been  dressed  for  a  country 
walk.  She  wore,  it  is  probable,  many  more  clothes. 
She  wore  silks,  moreover;  laces.  There  were  forget- 
me-nots  in  her  hat.  She  carried  a  parasol  that  was 
somewhat  elaborate,  and  she  opened  and  shut  it 

—  actions  which  involved   many  others  —  rather 
frequently.  The  wood  was  hers,  but  she  had  an  air 
of  exploring  it.  The  spirit  of  discreet  adventure  was, 
indeed,  so  apparent  in  her  looks  and  her  movements, 
that  the  observer  —  if  there  had  been  an  observer 

—  must  have  been  very  dull  to  whom  it  would  not 
have  been  manifest  that  the  winding  path  she  trod, 
even  as  the  impulse,  probably,  which  had  prompted 
her  pursuit  of  it,  was  wholly  new  to  her.   Her  steps 


4  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

were  tentative  as  the  steps  of  one  unsure  of  his 
ground,  but  purposeful  as  those  of  a  pioneer.  She 
looked  about  her  as  she  walked  and  stopped  often 
to  examine,  or  perhaps  to  pick,  a  flower;  or  when 
a  branch  which  must  be  manipulated  blocked  her 
way;  or  to  disentangle  a  twig  or  a  bramble  from 
skirts  which  were  doing  their  best,  but  were  wholly 
unsuitable  to  their  present  occupation  and  environ- 
ment. As  most  of  these  actions  entailed  the  closing 
of  the  parasol,  which  she  never  failed  subsequently 
to  reopen,  her  progress,  whatever  her  pace,  was  not 
quick.  She  had  long  hours  before  her.  She  was, 
indeed,  in  no  hurry. 

The  day  was  one  of  exceeding  beauty;  the  wood, 
sparse  where  she  walked,  but  thickening  on  each 
side  of  her,  was  of  a  beauty  that  was  vaguely,  but 
palpably  also,  exciting.  Spring  had  merged  into 
summer,  but  was  present  still  in  the  anemones  and 
the  wild  hyacinths  at  her  feet,  and  in  the  love-songs 
of  the  birds.  Every  now  and  then  she  heard  the  note 
of  the  cuckoo.  This  will-o'-the-wisp  of  sounds  she 
could  not  locate ;  could  not  even  tell  of  it  sometimes 
from  which  direction  it  came  to  her.  It  had  its  part 
in  the  beauty  of  the  day.  It  was  of  a  piece  with  the 
tender  green  of  the  leaves.  It  was  of  a  piece  with 
something  that  stirred  in  herself.  It  had  been  the 
note  of  the  cuckoo  —  another  one  probably,  but  pos- 
sibly even  the  same,  heard  from  the  terrace  as  she 
waited  for  three  o'clock  and  the  carriage  —  that 
had,  as  she  would  have  said,  'unsettled'  her.  The 


TIJE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  5 

carriage  had  come  round  as  the  hour  struck.    She 
had  sent  it  away. 

Hark!  There  it  was  .  .  .  and  there  .  .  .  cuckoo, 
cuckoo,  .  .  .  sweetest  (in  some  sort),  as  it  was  most 
elusive,  of  all  the  songs  of  love !  Sweet  as  love  itself, 
cruel,  too,  as  love,  if  you  associated  it  with  the  re- 
lentless ways  of  the  singer.  Wonderful  song  —  if 
you  could  call  that  a  song  which  had  but  two 
notes  to  its  sweet  interval  —  wonderful,  seductive, 
merciless.  Briefest  of  all  love's  songs  —  brief  as 
love.  Very  symbol,  then,  of  love's  rapture  and 
anguish,  of  the  surpassing,  because  the  passing, 
ecstasies  of  love.  Sound  calculated  to  disturb  you, 
indeed,  if  you  were  thirty,  and  a  woman,  —  lovely, 
moreover,  without  kith  or  kin  to  make  claim  on 
your  affections,  —  and  knew  that,  with  rings  on 
your  fingers  and  bells  on  your  toes,  with  posses- 
sions, —  that  is,  houses  and  lands  and  menserv- 
ants  and  maidservants,  carriages  and  horses,  and 
much  else,  in  modest  proportions,  perhaps,  as  pos- 
sessions go,  but  proportions  more  than  sufficient  to 
your  needs,  —  you  had  hitherto  somehow  missed,  or 
been  missed  by,  the  one  possession  of  all.  Cuckoo 
.  .  .  cuckoo  .  .  .  the  disturbance,  whatever  its  nature, 
was  divine. 

But  if  she  had  an  air  of  exploring  she  had  also  an 
air  of  seeking.  She  came  to  a  bridle  path  which 
cut  the  wood  obliquely,  and  was  plainly  uncertain 
whether  to  pursue  her  way  as  before  or  to  take  one 


of  the  alternative  routes  which  now  offered  them- 
selves to  her.  The  straight  cuttings,  clearer  of  un- 
dergrowth, appealed  to  her  tried  clothes  —  to  the 
parasol  which  would  not  there  have  to  be  furled 
and  unfurled  as  on  the  straggling  path  she  had  fol- 
lowed. But  she  liked  her  straggling  path,  liked, 
too,  because  they  were  unfamiliar,  the  little  incon- 
veniences to  which  it  put  her,  and  which  pointed 
the  adventure  of  the  day.  She  looked  right,  she 
looked  left:  green  glades;  shadowed.  Ahead,  the 
broken,  sun-flecked  wilderness  with  its  diversions 
and  its  obstacles.  The  charted,  the  uncharted  ways 
.  .  .  which?  She  chose  —  with  a  vague  feeling,  per- 
haps, that  what  she  sought  was  secret  and  would  be 
approached,  other  things  being  equal,  by  less  rather 
than  more  defined  ways  —  the  uncharted.  She 
would,  as  it  were,  stumble  upon  what  she  was 
seeking.  That  was  her  feeling.  That  was,  more- 
over, in  her  mood  of  the  strange  day,  her  hope  —  her 
wish  even. 

She  knew  suddenly  that  she  was  enjoying  her- 
self greatly.  The  smell  of  the  woods  in  her  nostrils 
was  like  some  delicate  savour  on  the  palate.  She 
would  distinguish  some  of  the  ingredients  in  the 
pot-pourri  of  sweet  scents.  Sweet-briar  at  a  point 
was  unexpectedly  one  of  them,  and  she  looked  about 
her  seeking  the  source  of  a  fragrance  that  she  con- 
nected only  with  cultivated  land.  Yes,  here  was 
sweet-briar.  She  plucked  a  leaf  and  held  it  to  her 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  7 

nose,  inhaling  deeply.  Smell  of  the  taste  of  the  apple 
of  your  dreams !  The  apple  of  the  poet's  dream  — 
of  the  Song  of  Solomon  —  the  apple  of  solace.  Or 
Eve's  apple  —  the  Forbidden?  Either.  It  was  an 
apple  with  a  taste  like  the  fragrance  of  sweet-briar 
that  the  singer  of  the  Song  of  Songs  had  in  his  mind, 
she  was  sure.  It  was  an  apple  with  a  taste  sharp 
and  sweet,  like  the  biting-sweet  fragrance  of  sweet- 
briar,  in  which  the  white  teeth  of  Eve  met  crisply 
as  the  morsel  slipped  pricking  into  her  watering 
mouth.  Where,  she  thought,  as  she  breathed  in 
the  pungent  essence  and  smiled  happily  to  herself, 
where,  in  these  days,  was  to  be  found  such  an  apple 
as  that? 

And  now  the  wood  thickened.  The  path  which 
she  thought  of  as  uncharted,  because,  in  comparison 
with  the  formal  cutting  of  the  others,  it  was  so  ill- 
defined,  became  obscure  and  obscurer  still.  Pres- 
ently, was  this  a  path  at  all?  Had  she  lost  that 
semblance  of  a  path  which  had  guided  her  steps 
hitherto?  And  at  what  moment?  The  wood  had 
become  a  maze.  Was  she,  too,  lost? 

She  had  closed  her  parasol.  Here  in  the  thickness 
of  the  wood  she  had  no  need  for  it.  She  was  in  a 
green  twilight  —  the  twilight  of  many  trees.  Not  the 
religious  care  of  the  most  delicate  complexion  in  the 
world  would  demand  the  use  of  a  sunshade  here. 
The  wood  was  its  own  sunshade  and  hers. 


8  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

The  ground  was  now  a  little  damp.  Soft  mosses 
carpeted  its  unevennesses.  Little  fleckings  of  sun- 
light dappled  or  damascened  them  with  gold.  Where 
such  a  filtering  of  light  struck  the  bark  of  a  tree 
a  snail,  it  chanced,  had  left  a  glittering,  glistening 
trail.  She  took  notice  of  such  small  things  as  might 
serve  her  for  landmarks,  if,  presently,  she  should 
find  that  she  was,  indeed,  lost.  She  should,  like 
the  children  in  the  fairy  story,  have  brought  white 
pebbles  with  her  to  strew  as  she  walked. 

Silence  now.  In  the  heart  of  the  wood  no  birds 
sang.  Yet  comparative  silence  only  —  or  silence 
which  was  not  silence  at  all,  but  a  thing  made  up  of 
innumerable  small  sounds.  In  it  she  heard  her  own 
footsteps,  the  cracking  of  twigs  under  her  feet,  the 
rustling  of  leaves  as  her  skirts  brushed  them,  the 
silken  rustle  of  her  skirts  themselves.  These  sounds 
were  magnified.  Crackle,  crackle,  swish,  swish:  they 
pointed  her  loneliness. 

She  stood  still  to  listen,  and  they  ceased.  The 
wood,  nay,  the  world,  seemed  to  her  empty.  Did 
no  one  use  the  wood?  Were  there  no  cottages  in  it 
or  on  the  outskirts  of  it?  Was  there  no  right  of  way 
through  its  leafy  fastnesses?  It  was  her  own  wood, 
but  she  did  not  know.  She  knew  the  keeper's  house, 
because  a  road  which  she  often  took  upon  her  drives 
led  you  to  that.  But  that  was  not  here.  She  knew  • 
—  as  Lady  Bountiful  rather  than  chatelaine  —  the 
cottages  of  many  of  the  workmen  on  the  estate, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  9 

woodmen,  hedgers  and  ditchers,  and  the  like.  But 
not  any  of  these  were  in  the  neighbourhood  in  which 
she  now  found  herself.  Found  herself?  Found? 
That  was  not  quite  the  word.  That  was  not  the 
word  at  all.  No  human  habitations  were  here.  No 
footfall  but  her  own  broke,  or  seemed  like  to  break, 
the  silence.  She  was  alone  in  the  wood.  She  was  — 
but  very  delightfully,  very  excitingly  —  lost.  It 
had  wanted  but  this,  she  thought,  to  complete  her 
adventure. 

Well,  whatever  happened,  she  had  only  to  walk 
long  enough  in  any  direction  to  come  out  —  some- 
where. 

It  was  as  she  stood  hesitating  that  she  heard, 
suddenly  and  just  ahead  of  her,  the  voice  of  the  de- 
ceiver. She  started  at  the  sound  and  moved  forward. 
The  tangle  of  the  wood  was  thickest  here.  Things 
that  had  been  cut  had  grown  up.  A  bramble  caught 
her  dress  and  tore  it.  She  freed  herself  with  difficulty. 
But  to  do  so  she  had  to  take  off  her  gloves,  and  the 
bramble,  baulked  of  its  prey,  revenged  itself.  When 
at  length  she  was  really  free,  not  one  only  of  the 
hands  sparkling  with  their  many  rings  was  bleeding, 
but  both  of  them. 

Should  she  have  taken  warning  and  turned  back? 
She  was  half  minded  to  turn,  but  the  thing  which 
had  barred  her  progress,  now  swaying  like  the  sword 
that  turned  this  way  and  that,  guarding  Eden, 
blocked  her  retreat.  Besides,  under  her  momentary 


io  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

misgiving,  she  knew  that  she  meant  to  go  on.  Deep 
down  in  her  heart  she  knew  .  .  .  and  just  then,  close, 
close  at  hand,  the  cuckoo's  voice  again  calling,  call- 
ing ... 
The  bramble,  disregarded,  swayed  to  stillness. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  clearing,  cut  as  it  seemed  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  wood,  was  as  an  island  —  an  island  set  in  a 
sea  of  leaves.  Out  of  this  sea,  after  battlement  with 
its  leavy  waves,  she  suddenly  emerged.  It  was  like 
getting  to  land.  That  was  why  she  thought  of  the 
clearing  as  an  island. 

She  was  a  little  breathless  now.  In  her  excitement 
she  forgot  the  smarting  of  her  hands  till  she  saw 
that  two  large  drops  had  gathered,  one  on  each.  Her 
handkerchief  —  a  filmy  thing  of  gossamer  —  was 
tucked,  luckily,  into  the  bodice  of  her  dress;  thus 
she  was  able  to  make  use  of  it,  and  with  its  aid, 
after  a  patient  minute  or  two  during  which  the  beads 
formed  and  re-formed,  to  stanch  the  minute  crimson 
flows  which  threatened  damage  to  her  silks  and 
laces.  By  the  sight  of  the  crimson  stains  upon  the 
white  she  was  reminded  again  of  a  fairy  story.  It 
wanted  but  the  black  of  ebony  for  the  infant  of  the 
queen's  desire  to  be  conjured  up  before  her.  Snow, 
ebony,  and  blood  —  it  was  to  be  compact  of  these, 
was  it  not,  the  child  of  the  young  queen's  dreams? 

She  did  not  follow  up  the  thought.  It  was,  indeed, 
hardly  a  thought.  It  lay  only  behind  her  other 
thoughts  —  under  the  excitement  which  held  her 
and  which  caused  her  heart  to  beat  and  her  eyes 
consciously  to  shine.  She  stepped  into  the  open. 


12  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

The  statue  stood  in  the  exact  centre  of  the  clear- 
ing, which  was  a  circle.  From  this  circle  four  paths, 
cut  in  the  wood,  radiated  like  the  spokes  of  a  wheel. 
Three  of  them  she  found  later  were  dummies  — 
blind  alleys  leading  nowhither.  The  fourth  led  into 
the  bridle  path  which  she  had  passed  upon  her  way. 
This  fourth,  faced  by  the  statue  which  looked  down 
the  long,  narrow  length  of  it,  was  the  approach 
proper  to  the  circle,  and  on  each  side  of  it  was  a 
stone  seat.  In  the  mouth  of  each  of  the  other  three, 
using  it,  indeed,  as  the  niche  which  in  point  of  fact 
it  was,  stood  a  terminal. 

Why  had  she  never  been  here  before?  —  hardly 
even  known  of  it?  Only  to  chance  words,  the  ex- 
pansive excuse  of  a  new  maid  the  evening  before,  did 
she  owe  a  realization  of  its  existence. 

"Lost  ourselves  in  the  wood,  'm,  me  and  Alice, 
on  our  walk,  being  strange  both  of  us  to  the  country 
after  London.  Or  else  I  see  now  I  ought  to  have 
waited  for  one  of  the  others  as  did  know  her  way,  but 
being  Alice's  afternoon  out  and  she  wanting  to  see 
it  too  .  .  ." 

"Very  well,  Branton,  very  well,  don't  let  it  occur 
again." 

"No,  'm,  indeed.  Nor  it  would  n't  have  occurred 
now,  except  for  the  difficulty  of  finding  it  —  being 
hidden  like.  Sort  of  secret  as  they  all  said  of  it.  I  '14 
sure  I  'm  very  sorry.  When  I  saw  the  time  I  said 
to  Alice,  'Whatever  will  my  lady  say  and  company 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  13 

to  dinner  and  me  with  her  hair  to  dress  and  not  so 
much  as  a  pair  of  stockings  laid  out  on  the  bed ! ' ' 

'Hidden  like.'  'Secret  as  they  all  said  of  it/  Hid- 
den. Secret.  And,  'They  said  of  it.'  They  talked 
of  it,  then?  Dim  memories  had  stirred  as  she  sub- 
mitted herself  to  the  competent  hands  of  the  be- 
lated maid.  What  was  it?  What  was  this  spot  that 
they  talked  of  —  that  newcomers  wanted  to  see? 
She  did  not  remember  that  her  husband  had  ever 
spoken  of  it  to  her.  But  she  had  heard  passing  al- 
lusions to  it.  A  guest  had  spoken  of  it,  or  one  of  the 
tenants,  or  some  one  in  the  village.  It  belonged  in 
a  way  to  the  youth  of  her  husband  —  to  the  long, 
strange  bachelor  days  of  the  old  man  whom  she  had 
married,  but  whom,  in  the  eight  years  of  her  married 
life,  she  had  never  known.  Oh,  yes,  she  had  heard 
of  it  —  vaguely  even  formed  a  conception  of  it,  so 
that,  from  time  to  time,  she  had  said  to  herself  that 
some  day  she  must  see  it.  But  that  day,  till  this  day, 
had  never  come.  They  were  comparatively  little 
at  Redmayne.  There  was  the  house  in  Charles 
Street.  There  was  Clanguthrie,  which  her  husband 
had  bought  for  the  fishing  and  which  she  later  had 
sold.  And,  for  the  last  eighteen  months  of  her  hus- 
band's life,  there  had  been  the  fruitless  chase  of  lost 
health,  abroad.  Since  his  death,  two  years  ago,  this 
was  the  first  occasion  on  which  she  had  made  a  stay 
of  any  length  in  her  country  home. 

So  had  it  come  that  she  had  not  seen  it,  and  so, 
for  the  very  indenniteness  of  her  knowledge  of  it, 


14  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

had  it  come  also  that,  at  the  back  of  her  mind, 
mystery  all  unconsciously  had  already  associated 
itself  with  what  her  eyes  were  now  beholding  for  the 
first  time. 

Her  eyes?  More  than  her  eyes.  Yes,  more,  cer- 
tainly, than  her  eyes.  All  her  senses  seemed  to  be 
implicated  in  the  feelings  she  was  experiencing.  Was 
there,  indeed,  some  magic  in  the  spot  —  in  the  circle 
itself,  in  the  grouping  of  the  three  satyrs  round  the 
statue?  Benevolent  satyrs,  as  she  saw  when  she 
came  to  examine  them.  No,  it  was  not  evil  that  was 
in  this  place.  But  something  was  in  it.  It  was  as 
if,  as  she  stepped  into  the  circle,  she  had  come  into 
the  range  of  a  spell  or  an  enchantment,  or,  more 
aptly,  perhaps,  within  the  radius  of  activities  and  of 
influences  which  elsewhere  had  been  impotent,  or,  at 
all  events,  undiscernible.  Once  over  the  border  an 
invisible  philtre  had  been  put  to  her  lips,  invisible 
hands  ministering,  and  she  had  drunk !  The  mystic 
fumes  of  the  potion  had  mounted,  were  mounting, 
not  obscuring  her  thoughts,  or  confusing  them,  but 
rather  clearing  them,  causing  them  to  be  crystal 
clear  so  that  her  mind  rejoiced  in  itself,  as,  suddenly, 
she  knew  that  her  body,  under  the  ridiculous  trap- 
pings of  ridiculous  clothes,  felt  itself  to  be  rejoicing. 
She  had  never  before  been  so  acutely  conscious  of 
herself.  She  had  a  sense  of  herself  as  the  mother*, 
her  child  at  the  breast,  has  sense  of  herself;  or  as  a 
child  of  itself  when,  rosy,  healthy,  new-awakened, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  15 

perhaps,  from  sleep,  it  watches  intently,  curiously, 
the  movements  of  the  dimpled  hands  and  feet  which 
it  has  come  gradually  to  recognize  as  under  its  own 
control. 

What  was  this  place?  What  did  it  signify?  To 
what  god  was  it  consecrated?  What  the  mystic 
incense  which  went  up  from  its  unseen  altars? 

She  had  been  standing  just  within  the  circle  where 
she  had  emerged  from  the  wood.  Now  she  moved 
forward  —  tentatively,  deprecatingly  even,  as  if, 
despite  the  welcome  which  the  place  had  given  her, 
and  of  the  sincerity  of  which  she  could  have  no 
doubt,  she  yet  felt  that  she  was  in  some  sort  a  tres- 
passer here,  or  at  most  a  guest,  who,  privileged, 
perhaps,  must  yet  go  warily.  Her  hosts  here  were  as 
the  shy,  friendly,  unknowable  things  of  the  fields 
and  the  woods.  Their  confidence  had  to  be  justified. 
They  were  elusive;  they  were  unaccountable;  they 
could  be  —  it  seemed  a  disloyalty  to  know  it  howso- 
ever deep  in  your  heart !  —  even  treacherous.  But 
if  they  really  trusted  you  they  liked  you. 

Let  us  watch  her,  as  they  perhaps  watched  her 
—  if  they  had  any  existence  outside  her  imagina- 
tion and  our  own!  She  was  tall  for  those  days;  beau- 
tifully made,  one  could  see,  and  might  further  guess, 
under  the  protuberances  and  redundancies  of  the 
absurd  yet  becoming  clothes.  She  looked  less  in- 
congruous than  might  be  supposed,  for  the  fashions 


16  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

of  the  early  seventies  echoed  grotesquely  some  of 
those  of  eighteenth-century  France,  and  the  spirit 
of  the  place  was  the  spirit  of  the  Fetes  Galantes  and 
the  Fetes  Champetres  of  the  court  painters.  Just 
such  a  setting  as  this  of  the  clearing  in  the  wood, 
with  its  statue  and  its  three  smiling  satyrs,  and  its 
carved  stone  seats  with  the  crumbling  rams'  heads 
and  garlands  of  flowers,  have  the  dally  ings  of  their 
lords  and  ladies.  Her  incongruities  were  for  the  wood ; 
here,  making  the  tour  of  the  circle  and  pausing  be- 
fore each  of  the  terminals  as  she  came  to  it,  she 
fitted  into  the  picture,  and  by  her  polite  artificiali- 
ties even  completed  it.  One  might  see  her,  then,  as  a 
symbol  of  that  which  directly  enough,  at  the  time 
when  such  pictures  were  painted,  had  been  making 
for  destruction  and  the  horrors  of  the  guillotine! 
One  might  see  her  thus,  if  one  chose  to  see  her,  and, 
dismissing  her,  miss  her  altogether.  The  seeds  of 
rebellion  were  in  herself.  They  put  forth  their  first 
shoots,  perhaps,  as  we  watch  her. 

Wonder  was  in  her  eyes.  She,  like  the  benevolent 
satyrs,  was  smiling.  Her  smile  was  lit  at  theirs 
maybe.  They  smiled  down  on  her,  yet  smiled  past 
her  at  —  or,  as  it  were,  to  —  the  statue.  They 
might  have  been  pointing  her  to  the  statue,  or  point- 
ing the  statue  to  her.  "Turn,"  they  may  have  been 
say  ing  to  her.  "Turn.  See  what  is  behind  you."  She 
had  an  air  of  saying  to  them  —  through  her  smile, 
perhaps,  using  it  as  a  vehicle  for  those  words  she  did 
not  speak  —  that  she  would  not  turn  yet.  It  was 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  17 

evident  that  she  did  not  mean  to  turn  —  to  let  her- 
self turn  —  yet.  Or  they  may  have  been  saying  to  the 
statue,  "Turn,  you.  See  what  has  come  into  the 
circle  ..." 

The  statue  did  not  make  sign  or  answer.  He  had 
waited.  He  could  wait. 

Yes,  it  must  have  been  deliberately  that  she  did 
not  turn.  Each  of  the  satyrs  had  her  attention.  She 
pulled  the  strangling  bindweed  from  about  the  throat 
of  one;  using  a  bit  of  stick,  cleared  the  dirt  of  years 
from  the  graven  features  of  another;  unbound  the 
eyes  of  the  third,  which  ivy,  partially  blinding, 
threatened  to  blind  completely.  She  ministered  to 
each. 

The  wood  was  encroaching  everywhere  —  re- 
claiming as  a  possession  what  had  been  reclaimed 
from  itself.  The  deep  niches  —  paths  as  and  though 
they  appeared  to  be  —  were  choked  with  branches 
and  undergrowth;  the  path,  down  which  the  statue 
looked,  choked  too.  There  was  a  straggle  and  a 
tangle  of  undergrowth  in  the  clearing.  What  had 
been  turf,  maybe,  in  its  day,  was  now  a  jungle  of 
weeds  and  tall  grasses.  Hemlock  was  here  and 
campion,  ragwort  and  briony,  sorrel,  wild  garlic. 
There  were  brambles,  too  (sweet-briar  amongst 
them  —  again  sweet-briar),  which  caught  at  her 
skirts,  like  the  brambles  in  the  thicknesses  of  the 
wood  itself.  Little  trees  had  planted  themselves. 
Some  day,  the  wood  had  promised  itself,  there 
should  be  nothing  but  the  overgrown  carved  stone 


i8  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

to  show  that  a  clearing  had  ever  been  here  at  all. 
Circle,  statues,  seats,  all  were  to  have  been  swallowed 
up  in  the  green  sea  of  leaves. 

She  had  left  the  third  satyr  now  —  him  of  the  half- 
bandaged  eyes  which  she  had  set  free  —  and  threaded 
her  way  to  the  opening  of  the  path  between  the  two 
stone  seats.  She  examined  each  of  these  before  she 
turned.  They  were  both  flaky,  weather-stained, 
battered,  but  their  carvings  were  fine  and  were  little 
broken.  They  had  come  from  Italy,  it  was  probable. 
She  swept  the  litter  of  sticks  and  leaves  and  refuse 
of  the  wood  from  them,  and  ran  her  fingers  over  the 
garlands  caressingly.  She  appeared  to  minister  to 
the  carved  seats  as  she  had  ministered  to  the  carved 
satyrs.  She  looked  as  a  woman  looks  when  she  is 
visiting  a  grave  that  has  been  long  neglected  and 
does  it  what  little  temporary  services  are  in  her 
power.  Was  she,  perhaps,  visiting  a  grave?  Was 
this  spot  the  strange  memorial  of  her  strange  hus- 
band? It  was,  as  she  had  supposed,  closely  associated 
with  him.  It  was,  perhaps,  his  most  fitting  monu- 
ment. But  you  do  not  visit  graves  with  joy,  with 
spftly  flushed  cheeks,  with  excitement,  an  adventur- 
ous air. 

She  turned  slowly.  She  was  standing  now  in  the 
exact  middle  of  the  path  which  faced  the  statue. 

Afterwards  she  asked  herself  whether  any  of  tl^e 
events  of  that  afternoon  had  happened  at  all?  Did 
the  place  itself  exist?  Was  the  whole  thing,  her  pil- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  19 

grimage,  the  walk  through  the  wood,  the  swaying 
briar  barring  her  way,  the  sudden  clearing,  the  stone 
seats,  the  three  guardian  satyrs,  the  very  statue 
—  was  this,  were  these  a  dream?  If  so,  who  should 
tell  her  the  interpretation  of  it? 

No  dream.  Did  she  not  in  her  mind's  eye  al- 
ready see  the  place  swept  and  garnished?  Not  al- 
tered. Not  a  thing  should  be,  as  we  say,  touched! 
But  (like  the  neglected  grave,  perhaps)  the  spot 
should  be  cleared,  cleaned,  set  in  order.  Would  turf 
flourish  in  the  heart  of  a  wood,  so  nearly  under 
trees?  No  dream,  you  see,  when  she  could  busy  her 
mind  with  such  thoughts  and  intentions.  She  had 
a  dozen  projects. 

Yet,  so  passing  strange  it  all  seemed  when  she 
looked  back!  What  had  possessed  her?  Not  that 
she  regretted.  The  experience  had  been  wonderful, 
awakening.  Had  the  statue  really  the  qualities  with 
which  she  had  accredited  it?  Only  thus  could  she 
account .  .  . 

A  sitting  figure  of  a  youth  —  a  slave,  perhaps  — 
leaning  slightly  forward,  his  legs  drawn  up,  the 
left  foot  advanced  a  little  beyond  the  other,  the 
hands  clasped  lightly  round  the  right  knee.  That 
was  all.  But  —  for  her  as  she  had  seen  it  in  those 
strange  moments  of  clear  sight  —  that  does  not 
begin  to  tell  of  the  beauty  which  the  unknown 
sculptor  had  found  in  the  pose  and  captured  in  the 
enduring  marble.  What  in  the  pose?  What  of  haunt- 


20  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

ing,  hurting,  loveliness?  Calm  was  there,  patience, 
knowledge,  but  under  these,  and  yet  somehow  in- 
forming them,  something  which  she  could  not  define 
—  something  which  may  have  made  for  knowledge, 
but  did  not  make  for  peace.  It  was  as  if  on  the  calm 
of  the  relaxed  limbs  and  the  steadfast  patience  of 
the  waiting  features  the  sculptor  had  left  record 
of  his  own  unrest.  Across  the  centuries  he  had  sent 
his  message,  and  she,  Philistine  as  she  was  and 
even  knew  herself  to  be,  had  somehow  received, 
nay,  been  able  to  receive,  it.  She  had  a  sudden  ink- 
ling of  what  the  search  for  beauty  might  mean  and 
as  immediate  a  knowledge  that  nowhere  is  it  written 
that  those  who  hunger  and  thirst  after  beauty  shall 
be  filled.  With  her  joy  in  the  unknown  artist's  work 
was  a  stab  at  her  heart  for  his  wounds.  Only  out 
of  his  suffering  could  this  joy  which  she  felt  in  the  con- 
templation of  his  achievement  have  come  to  her. 
The  joy  had  increased  as  she  looked.  Presently  his 
suffering  did  not  matter.  There  are  persons  in  whom 
the  ecstasy  produced  by  the  contemplation  of 
beauty  holds  elements  of  despair.  She  was  not  of 
those.  She  could  look  and  rejoice  —  exult.  She  was 
absolved  by  her  very  Philistinism  from  participa- 
tion in  any  artist's  pain  —  as  completely,  perhaps, 
as  the  youth  who  had  sat  for  this  one  and  whose  form 
and  features  had  been  destined  to  transmit  his  mes- 
sage. But  the  message  had  its  part,  too,  in  affecting- 
her.  Pity  was  transmuted  to  a  baser  emotion.  A 
momentary  jealousy  stirred  in  her. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  21 

She  need  not  have  been  jealous.  The  artist,  giving, 
breathing  life  into  dead  stone,  had  robbed  her  of 
nothing.  The  emotion  was  not  prolonged.  It  passed, 
indeed,  in  a  sharp  pang  that  was  like  the  stab  at  her 
heart  which  had  preceded  it,  and  she  was  in  key 
again  with  the  smiling  day  and  the  smiling  place. 
Even  the  youth  seemed  to  smile  in  his  calm.  She 
could  have  fancied  that  his  smile  was  for  her  —  that 
he  had  been  waiting  for  her,  looking  always  down  the 
long,  narrow  avenue,  telling  himself  that  one  day, 
one  day  —  she  would  come  .  .  . 

Eleven  years  fell  from  her  as  she  stood  there.  She 
was  nineteen  again.  He  was  her  own  age  —  a  year 
older,  perhaps  —  yes,  twenty.  A  year  older  that  he 
might  have  the  male's  rightful  authority.  She  had 
married  at  nineteen  the  courtly,  polished,  hand- 
some old  man  who  had  been  her  husband  but  not 
her  mate.  Old?  Nineteen  calls  sixty  old.  Why  had 
she  married  him?  Five  out  of  ten  of  the  girls  she 
knew  would  have  married  him;  more:  not  one, 
perhaps,  of  her  bridesmaids  but  envied  her  her  grey- 
haired,  upright  bridegroom.  He  was  like  something 
fashioned  of  steel  —  as  burnished,  as  cold.  Was  he 
cold? 

No  matter.  He  was  old  and  youth  goes  to  youth. 
If  she  had  known!  She  did  know  suddenly.  Her 
pulses  were  again  the  pulses  of  a  girl.  Her  skin  the 
fine  rose-petal  skin  of  a  young  girl.  A  flush  was  on 
her  cheeks.  Her  eyes  were  shining. 


22  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

She  moved  forward  like  one  sleep-walking  and  laid 
her  face  against  the  stone  face.  Youth  to  youth. 
The  stone,  on  which  the  sun  had  been  shining,  was 
warm. 

Her  eyes  filled  with  tears. 


CHAPTER  III 

SOMETHING  had  happened  to  Ann  Forrester  the 
day  she  walked  in  the  wood.  She  went  out  one 
woman,  she  came  back  another.  So,  at  least,  it 
seemed  to  herself.  It  surprised  her  that  others  did 
not  appear  to  notice  any  change  —  anything  differ- 
ent even  in  her  aspect.  She  half  believed  herself 
to  have  been,  and  still,  in  some  sort,  to  be,  be- 
witched. How  else  could  she  explain  her  amazing 
conduct?  What  she  had  done  was  so  unlike  her. 
Never  in  her  life  had  she  yielded  to  strange  impulses. 
It  might  almost  be  said  that  never  in  her  life  had 
strange  impulses  beset  her.  Orthodox  was  a  word  of 
those  days :  she  was  orthodox. 

Yet  the  change  which  she  was  conscious  of  in 
herself  she  did  not  wholly  deprecate.  She  had  been 
bound ;  she  was  free.  Impossible  not  to  experience 
some  relief  at  deliverance  even  from  restraints  imper- 
fectly realized.  Was  she  free?  She  could  only  have 
said  that  she  felt  herself  free.  Had  there  been  re- 
straints? If  not,  why  this  sense  of  freedom?  Which 
was  only  to  argue  in  a  circle  as  Branton  her  maid 
might  have  argued,  or  Mrs.  Piper  in  the  house- 
keeper's room. 

She  certainly  saw  things  newly.  Her  boudoir  — 
which  she  even  called  her  boudoir  —  suddenly  dis- 
pleased her.  She  had  been  delighted  with  it  up  to 


24  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

then,  secretly  preferring  it  to  the  beautiful  Adam 
drawing-room  which  she  had  always  found  too  aus- 
tere for  her  taste.  Now  she  saw  her  own  satin- 
panelled  room  as  vulgar.  All  that  she  had  admired 
in  it  lost  its  charm.  There  was  too  much  of  every- 
thing; too  much  blue  satin,  too  many  sunk  buttons 
in  the  elaborate  upholstery  of  chairs  and  sofas,  too 
much  gold,  too  many  curves,  too  many  photographs 
and  photograph  frames.  There  was  a  portrait  in 
crayons  on  porcelain  of  herself  which  had  been  her 
special  pleasure  —  in  evening  dress,  a  fan,  a  bouquet, 
white  kid  gloves.  As  strange  an  impulse,  surely,  as 
that  to  which  she  had  so  strangely  yielded  in  the 
wood,  sent  her  hand  to  the  china  knob  of  the  bell 
beside  the  fireplace. 

A  footman  answered  her  ring. 

"Ask  Mrs.  Piper  to  be  good  enough  to  come  to 
me." 

Mrs.  Piper  appeared  in  the  course  of  a  few  minutes. 

But  Mrs.  Piper  found  her  in  what  is  known  as  a 
brown  study. 

"You  wished  to  speak  to  me,  *m." 

"Oh,  Mrs.  Piper?"  she  said.  She  seemed  to  have 
forgotten  what  she  had  to  say.  "Oh,  yes,  to  be  sure." 

Mrs.  Piper,  all  shining  alpaca  and  chenille, 
waited. 

"Yes,  *m?"   But  there  was  no  answer. 

Mrs.  Piper  coughed  discreetly;  coughed  respect- 
fully. Summer  and  winter  Mrs.  Piper  had  a  cough. 
She  might  be  said  to  keep  one  as  people  keep  pets. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  25 

You  asked  after  it,  and  not  so  much  asked  after  it 
as  asked  for  it.  "Your  cough,  Mrs.  Piper?"  —  as 
who  should  say,  "Your  dear  cough,  —  are  we  not 
to  have  the  pleasure  .  .  .  ?" 

But  Mrs.  Forrester  on  this  occasion  forgot  Mrs. 
Piper's  cough.  When  she  collected  herself  it  was  to 
say  again,  "Oh,  yes,  to  be  sure,"  and  once  more  to 
pause. 

She  withdrew  her  eyes  from  the  housekeeper  and 
ran  them  around  the  room.  They  came  to  a  halt  at 
the  porcelain  portrait  on  the  console  table  between 
the  windows. 

She  had  found  that  she  did  not  know  quite  how 
to  say  that  she  wanted  to  get  rid  of  the  portrait  by 
giving  it  to  Mrs.  Piper,  for  the  housekeeper's  room. 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "I  was  wondering  whether  — 
whether  you  would  care  to  have  this,  Mrs.  Piper?" 

"That,  fm!" 

Mrs.  Piper's  tone  expressed  her  pleased  astonish- 
ment. 

"Your  beautiful  likeness  in  the  crayongs,  'm, — 
on  porcelain!" 

"Yes  —  on  porcelain,"  Mrs.  Forrester  said.  She 
closed  on  the  word  "porcelain"  as  if  it  held  for  her- 
self all  that  she  wanted  to  express.  "If  you  think 
you  would  like  it  for  your  room.  You  have  the 
engraving  of  Mr.  Forrester  and  I  thought,  per- 
haps .  .  ." 

Mrs.  Piper  forgot  her  cough  —  forgot  even  that 
her  mistress  had  neglected  to  ask  for  it. 


26  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"But  so  beautiful,  'm.  With  gloves  and  fan.  I 
should  know  it  for  your  ivory  with  the  chicken  skin 
anywhere,  'm.  And  the  bouquet,  so  natural.  It's 
too  good  for  downstairs,  'm.  It  is,  indeed,  One  of 
the  loveliest  things  in  this  lovely  room.  For  my- 
self, 'm?  To  keep,  as  it  were?  Do  you  really  mean 
it?" 

"I  thought,  perhaps,  it  would  go  on  the  mantel- 
piece —  or  anywhere  else,  of  course,  that  you  liked." 

"I  shall  treasure  it,  *m." 

Mrs.  Forrester  took  it  from  the  table,  looked  at 
it,  and  put  it  into  her  hands.  Mrs.  Piper  bowed 
over  it,  renewed  her  raptures,  and  withdrew. 

"Now,  what's  she  done  that  for?"  was  her  un- 
spoken comment  when  she  had  closed  the  door 
behind  her. 

All  the  rest  of  that  day  Ann  Forrester  was  what 
the  novelists  of  the  seventies  —  the  writers  of  the 
books  which  she  read  —  called  distraite.  The  fash- 
ion was  still  for  French  words  then.  Men  were 
distingues,  women  elegantes.  Ann  Forrester,  ele- 
gante beyond  dispute,  was  distraite  also  —  qualified, 
as  we  see,  for  a  heroine's  part  in  any  one  of  their 
novels. 

One  of  the  effects  of  the  absence  of  mind  that  now 
seized  her  was  that,  with  the  gift  to  Mrs.  Piper, 
her  designs  upon  the  decorations  of  the  room  which 
she  had  seen  newly  and  which  had  displeased  her, 
seemed  to  have  spent  themselves.  She  had  had 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  27 

vague  intentions  of  beginning  the  work  of  demolish- 
ment  at  once.  She  did  nothing  more  —  did  not  move 
a  single  photograph  frame,  or  sweep  away  one  of 
the  objects  which  crowded  the  tables  and  the  shelves 
and  tops  of  the  cabinets.  She  stood  for  some  time 
looking  out  of  the  window  with  shining  eyes  that 
did  not  register  any  conscious  impression  of  what 
they  rested  on,  and  then  sat  for  as  long  in  one  of  the 
satin-covered  chairs  and  dreamed.  She  still  felt 
light  as  air,  still  felt  as  if  heavy  shackles  had  been 
struck  off  her  limbs.  A  smile  played  round  her  lips. 

Mrs.  Piper,  like  her  namesake  Peter  of  the  Pickled 
Peppers,  proceeded  in  the  housekeeper's  room  to  do 
things  with  a  P.  She  put  the  portrait  on  the  piano 
and  pondered.  The  piano  had  itself  once  graced  the 
boudoir.  So  had  the  curtain  of  heavy  faded  brocade. 
So  had  the  pierced  steel  fender.  So  had  the  two 
slender  screens  which  had  given  place  to  the  two 
worked  satin  banners  hanging  by  an  elaborate  ar- 
rangement of  folding  gilt  rods  from  the  mantelpiece. 
In  many  instances,  if  boudoir  and  housekeeper's 
room  could  have  known  it,  it  was  the  housekeeper's 
room  that  scored.  But  neither  knew  it — each 
blinded  hitherto  by  the  ephemeral  fashion  of  the 
day.  Mrs.  Piper  could  understand  the  discarding  of 
the  piano,  for  the  piano  was  admittedly  outworn. 
She  could  understand  the  faded  curtains  finding  their 
way  to  her ;  the  fender  —  since  brass  was  so  much 
handsomer  than  mere  steel;  the  screens,  because 


28  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

she  thought  the  adjustable  blue  satin  banners,  with 
their  gilt  rods  and  their  silken  tassels,  so  exquisite. 
But  the  portrait  on  porcelain  —  to  come  back  to  the 
P's  —  there  Mrs.  Piper  pronounced  herself  puzzled. 

We  may  leave  the  good  lady  puzzled,  and,  closing 
behind  us  at  the  top  of  the  back  stairs  the  green 
baize  door  which  divided  the  servants'  quarters 
from  the  rest  of  the  house,  return  to  her  mistress. 
We  find  her  still  dreaming. 

To  her  there  entered  Whipple  the  butler  to  tell 
her  that  Mr.  Coram  was  in  the  library  and  would 
like  to  speak  to  her. 

"  Very  well.  I  '11  be  with  Mr.  Coram  in  a  moment." 

Mr.  Coram  was  the  land-agent.  The  day  of  the 
week  was  Tuesday.  Friday  was  the  day  when  she 
glanced  over  his  accounts,  heard  his  reports,  settled 
what  works  or  repairs  were  to  be  done  on  the  estate, 
which  of  the  tenants'  requests  or  grievances  were 
reasonable  and  which  were  negligible,  signed  the 
cheques  for  wages  and  so  on,  and  saw  generally  to 
the  affairs  of  her  property.  Half  an  hour's  work  on 
Friday  morning  completed  the  business  arrangements 
for  the  week.  It  was  in  no  sense  indispensable,  since 
it  only  took  place  when  she  was  at  Redmayne  and 
she  was  so  often  away.  She  enjoyed  this  half-hour, 
however,  and  had  got  into  the  way  of  looking  for- 
ward to  it.  Mr.  Coram,  whom  she  was  very  careful 
to  call  Mr.  Coram,  but  whom  she  thought  of  some- 
times by  the  Christian  name  by  which,  as  a  friend 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  29 

of  his  father's,  her  husband  had  been  accustomed 
often  to  address  him,  and  always  to  speak  of  him, 
was  a  young  man  with  whom  most  men  and  all 
women  liked  to  come  in  contact.  "Timothy  has  a 
head  on  his  shoulders,"  Mr.  Forrester  used  to  say, 
and  probably  saw  quite  as  well  as  the  women  that 
Timothy  had  shoulders,  to  say  nothing  of  a  mag- 
nificent throat,  to  carry  the  head  on.  Brains  ap- 
pealed to  Mr.  Forrester  and  —  witness,  perhaps, 
his  beautiful  wife  —  not  brains  only.  Timothy 
Coram  was  in  two  senses  a  man  of  parts. 

"What  does  he  want?"  was  Ann  Forrester's 
thought,  as,  nothing  loath,  she  went  her  way  to  the 
library. 

It  seemed  that  she  was  not  to  know.  Twice 
lately  in  the  middle  of  the  week  Mr.  Coram  had 
come  to  see  her  upon  matters  which,  when  she  had 
examined  them,  she  found  could  have  waited  till 
Friday.  What  he  said  that  he  wanted,  now,  was  to 
know  whether  Williams  at  the  Home  Farm  was  or 
was  not  to  be  allowed  a  rebate  for  which  from  time 
to  time  he  put  in  certain  pleas.  The  matter  was  in 
no  way  urgent. 

Mr.  Coram,  looking  magnificent  in  his  leggings 
and  his  old  rough  tweed  suit,  gave  as  his  reason 
for  troubling  her  that  he  had  met  Williams  that 
morning  and,  after  listening  to  him,  had  promised 
to(  see  what  Mrs.  Forrester  had  to  say.  It  was  very 
pleasant  to  hear  what  Mr.  Coram  had  to  say  in  that 
pleasant,  deep  voice  of  his.  When  she  found  that 


30  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

he  was  for  refusing,  she  heard  herself  whimsically 
championing  her  tenant's  cause  for  the  pleasure  of 
hearing  him  demolish  her  arguments. 

"Williams  is  as  able  to  pay  his  way  as  you  are," 
he  said.  "He  just  sees  a  chance  of  saving  a  bit.  If  by 
working  on  your  sympathies  he  can  keep  in  his  own 
pocket  what  ought  to  go  into  yours  he  is  n't  above 
doing  it.  Not  that  I  Ve  a  word  to  say  against  him. 
He's  quite  a  decent  old  chap.  He's  just  a  bit  of  an 
old  soldier." 

"But  if  he's  a  decent  old  soldier." 

She  had  two  ideas:  one  that  he  had  already  re- 
fused Williams's  request  —  as  she  was  quite  sure 
in  her  own  mind,  despite  her  words,  that  it  ought  to 
be  refused ;  the  other,  that  Williams  was  an  excuse. 
He  had  not  come  to  talk  to  her  about  Williams  at  all. 
Williams  was  the  cover  under  which  he  approached 
her. 

Why? 

As  she  looked  at  him,  pondering  rather  the  ques- 
tion which  she  asked  herself  than  the  question  which 
he  professed  to  ask,  he  began  to  fidget  a  little.  She 
had  always  known,  without,  as  we  say,  thinking 
about  it,  that  this  big  young  man  was  shy. 

11 1  shall  tell  Williams  you  won't  hear  of  it,"  he  said 
jerkily. 

Ann  Forrester  smiled. 

"I  believe  you  have  told  him,"  she  said. 

There  was  a  moment's  pause. 

"Well,  practically  I  have,"  he  admitted. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  31 

"Then  that's  all?"  said  Ann. 

The  room  was  lined  with  books  and  had  the 
pleasant  smell  of  books.  Behind  her  preoccupation 
with  Mr.  Timothy  Coram  and  what  had  brought 
hhn,  Ann  Forrester,  fresh  from  her  criticisms  of  her 
boudoir,  had  a  new  consciousness  of  how  beautiful 
the  room  was,  and  how  pleasant  were  its  influences. 
It  was  in  the  winter,  perhaps,  and  on  a  winter  eve- 
ning especially,  when  the  heavy  curtains  were 
drawn  and  a  fire  burned  in  the  grate,  that  the  room 
was  at  its  best.  But  it  was  beautiful  at  all  times. 
Books  and  bronzes  —  what  better  decorations  for 
a  room?  Her  eyes  rested  absently  on  one  of  the 
bronzes.  It  was  as  if,  taking  them  for  granted,  she 
had  seen  none  of  these  things  before. 

If  Mr.  Coram  had  come  to  say  anything  particu- 
lar he  did  not  say  it.  He  picked  up  his  hat  and  his 
driving-gloves.  He  was  going.  She  had  a  vague  wish 
to  delay  him,  but  found  no  adequate  reason,  and 
let  him  go. 

Well,  that,  as  she  had  said,  was  all.  But  was  it? 
It  was  a  still  more  distraite  lady  who  went  for  her 
drive  that  afternoon. 

Bewitched !  There  was  no  other  word  for  it.  Be- 
witched from  the  moment  when  she  had  listened  to 
the  cuckoo  and  started  for  her  fateful  walk!  She 
had  not  been  thinking  of  love.  She  did  not  know 
that  she  had  thought  of  love  since  the  death  of  her 
husband.  She  did  not  know  that  she  had  thought 
much  about  love  during  his  life.  No  roving  eye 


32  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

hers.  She  was  not  sure  even  that  there  had  not  been 
times  when  she  had  supposed  that  what  she  felt  for 
him  was  love  —  times,  that  is,  when  the  love  at 
which  she  merely  guessed,  and  which  (in  such  mo- 
ments of  guessing)  she  knew  herself  to  have  missed, 
seemed  to  have  place  only  in  the  imagination  of 
the  poets  and  novelists  who  thus,  inventing  it  to 
begin  with,  exploited  it,  used  it  as  part,  of  their 
stock  in  trade,  and  imposed  it  upon  the  imaginations 
of  their  readers.  She  had  started  for  her  walk  nor- 
mal, cool,  poised,  a  woman  of  sound  common  sense, 
with,  as  she  would  have  said,  no  nonsense  about 
her,  nor,  as  she  would  have  thought,  any  special  sus- 
ceptibility to  vapours,  whimsies,  megrims,  any  of 
those  or  kindred  weaknesses.  She  had -come  back 
—  well,  as  we  have  seen.  She  started  for  her  drive 
in  that  curious  state  of  abstraction  which  had  held 
and  was  holding  her  so  strangely,  but  heart-whole 
she  would  have  affirmed,  protested,  sworn  if  need 
be;  she  came  back  from  it  the  captive  and  the  victim 
of  love.  She  came  back  over  head  and  ears  in  love 
with  the  magnificent  Timothy  Coram. 


CHAPTER  IV 

IN  after  years  when  Ann  Forrester  looked  back 
she  knew  that  what  had  seemed  so  sudden  had  been 
long  preparing.  Examined,  perhaps  no  mental  crises 
are  really  sudden.  Manifestations  as  sudden  as  you 
like;  processes  for  the  most  part  gradual.  This  had 
been  gradual.  She  had  taken  Timothy  Coram  for 
granted  as  she  had  taken  the  bronzes  for  granted 
in  the  library  —  yes,  and  the  library  itself  in  which 
the  bronzes  stood;  but  Timothy  Coram  had  been 
there  urging  his  way  gently  into  her  life,  as  the 
bronzes  had  been  there  educating  her  eye,  and  it  had 
needed  but  some  such  experience  as  she  had  been 
through  to  enable  her  to  realize  him.  She  saw  him 
newly ;  saw  him  as  if  she  had  been  seeing  him  for  the 
first  time,  and  knew  that  in  gaining  this  fresh  vision 
of  him  she  was  relinquishing  the  old,  and  with  it 
her  peace  of  mind. 

The  servants  noticed  her  abstraction.  Mrs.  Piper 
showed  the  portrait  with  some  pride.  She  had 
noticed  nothing,  she  said.  Nothing  so  very  unusual 
in  a  gift  to  her  was  her  argument.  Wool-gathering? 
She  had  seen  nothing  of  the  sort.  'Mrs.  Piper,  I 
should  like  to  make  you  a  little  present'  —  that 
was  her  version  of  what  Mrs.  Forrester  had  said  to 
her  in  the  boudoir  —  as  a  token  of  esteem,  of  course, 


34  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

clearly  implied.  She  chose  to  forget  that  she  had 
had  to  cough  before  her  presence  was  perceived, 
chose  to  forget  her ' Now,  what's  she  done  that  for?' 
outside  the  door.  But  absence  of  mind?  No  hint 
or  sign  of  any  such  thing  to  the  best  of  Mrs.  Piper's 
knowledge.  'I  want  to  make  you  a  little  present. 
Let  me  have  the  pleasure  of  asking  your  accept- 
ance of  this.' 

Branton,  however,  told  of  a  very  preoccupied 
lady,  to  whom  you  had  to  put  every  question  twice, 
and  who  did  not  appear  to  notice  what  she  wore. 

'"Oh,  anything,  Branton,'  she  says,  'yes,  that'll 
do  nicely,'  and  could  n't  have  told  that  from  t'other 
it's  my  belief  when  she  had  got  it  on  as  I  let  her 
do,  though  it  was  n't  what  I  'd  meant  her  to  wear 
and  only  herself  for  dinner.  Quite  unlike  herself,  / 
thought,  though  I  did  keep  me  thoughts  to  me  own 
mind  and  pass  no  remarks  —  quite  and  altogether 
unlike  herself." 

Whipple  told  of  a  lady  who  practically  ate 
nothing,  well,  nothing  to  speak  of,  at  dinner  —  or 
luncheon  for  that  matter. 

Did  n't  seem  to  care  where  she  drove  either, 
Charles,  who  had  been  out  with  the  carriage,  cor- 
roborated. "  'Anywhere.  About  an  hour  and  a  half, 
tell  Fenton.'  And  came  back  like  one  in  a  dream. 
Seemed  quite  surprised  like  when  we  got  home  and 
I  let  down  the  steps  for  her.  Sort  of  'Oh-do-I-gei- 
out-here?'  'Is-this-where-I-live?'  sort  of.  'Is  the 
drive  over?'" 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  35 

"Such  stuff!"  said  Mrs.  Piper,  and  went  back  to 
her  room. 

But  Branton  hoped  her  lady  was  not  sickening  for 
anything.  Just  the  way  illnesses  began  —  an  all- 
overish  feeling,  crinklings  down  the  spine  of  the  back, 
and  lucky  if  you  were  n't  in  a  burning  fever  by 
morning. 

"  For  two  pins  I  'd  have  taken  upon  meself  to  feel 
her  pulse  and  advise  bed." 

So  they  talked.  Let  no  one  on  this  side  of  the  green 
baize  door  suppose  that  his  or  her  moods  escape 
comment  on  the  other. 

Ann  Forrester,  happy  and  unhappy,  shed  a  few 
tears  in  the  night.  On  the  whole  she  was  happy,  as 
why  should  she  not  be  with  everything  as  she  might 
have  supposed  to  bestow?  Had  she  not  also  the  silent 
implication  of  those  apparently  purposeless  visits 
to  draw  upon  for  solace  if  doubt  should  beset  her? 
Unquestionable  that  the  gentleman  had  made  ex- 
cuses to  see  her.  What  had  he  to  say?  What,  when 
it  came  to  the  point?  She  was  soon  to  know. 

The  next  morning  told  her.  She  was  arranging 
flowers  in  the  morning-room  —  or  more  accurately 
trying  to  bring  her  wandering  thoughts  to  bear 
upon  the  arranging  of  flowers,  a  great  sheaf  of 
which  had  just  been  sent  in  from  the  gardens  — 
when  Whipple  came  to  tell  her  that  Mr.  Coram 
was  in  the  library. 

"Tell  Mr.  Coram,"  she  said,  using  almost  the 


36  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

same  words  as  before,  —  "tell  Mr.  Coram  I  '11  be  with 
him  in  a  moment." 

But  this  time  she  did  not  follow  the  servant  at 
once.  She  needed  the  moment  she  had  spoken  of 
in  which  to  calm  herself  and  to  steady  her  nerves. 
Her  heart  was  beating  so  violently  that  she  could 
not  immediately  have  trusted  her  voice,  or  even 
trusted  her  cheeks,  to  which,  when  she  was  alone, 
and  though  she  was  alone,  the  treacherous  colour 
mounted  like  the  colour  of  a  child.  She  had  been 
longing  to  see  him  and  shrank  from  seeing  him. 
All  love's  paradoxes  and  contradictions  were  there. 

Yet,  when  at  length  she  was  ready,  it  was  to  all 
appearance  a  normal  Ann  Forrester  who  came  to  the 
young  man  in  the  library.  She  held  out  her  hand, 
smiling.  His  covering  clasp  of  it  caused  the  calmness 
of  her  eyes  to  falter  for  a  second  or  two,  but,  after- 
wards, she  had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that 
from  first  to  last  she  had  betrayed  no  sign  of  her 
inward  perturbation.  He,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
quite  plainly  embarrassed. 

She  waited  for  what  he  had  to  say.  He  had  seen 
Williams  and  had  convinced  him  that  the  rebate  he 
asked  for  was,  as  he  had  told  him,  quite  out  of  the 
question.  Williams  had  hummed  and  hawed,  of 
course ;  had  not  accepted  the  decision  without  some 
attempt  at  argument.  Twinton,  of  the  White  House 
Farm,  and  Acland,  of  the  Red  Bank,  had  both  haci 
their  rents  lowered  —  an  old  grievance.  That  might 
be,  but  what  about  the  new  outbuildings  which 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  37 

Williams  had  asked  for  two  years  back  and  which 
had  been  conceded? 

Ann  Forrester  waited  —  smiling  even.  All  this, 
she  knew  well,  was  but  to  make  a  short  story  long, 
for  in  his  good-tempered  way  (to  which  they  all 
responded)  he  listened  to  no  nonsense  from  the 
tenants.  He  dealt  with  them  easily  because,  as  they 
knew  in  their  hearts,  he  dealt  with  them  very  justly. 
None  of  this  was  what  he  had  come  to  say.  So  she 
waited,  considering  even,  now  that  she  had  control 
of  herself,  whether  she  should  help  him. 

He  stopped  suddenly  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence. 
Perhaps  he  realized  her  smile  and  interpreted  it. 

"No,"  he  said,  as  if  answering  her  thought,  "this 
is  n't  what  I  have  to  say.  I  hardly  know  how  to 
begin." 

Ann  looked  at  him.  Her  face  did  not  betray  her. 
She  was  sure  of  herself  now. 

"Oh,"  she  said  in  a  matter-of-fact  tone,  "you 
know  me  well  enough,  surely,  Mr.  Coram,  to  say 
anything  to  me  that  you  may  have  to  say." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "that's  true.  It  does  n't,  all  the 
same,  make  this  easy.  I've  tried  more  than  once 
and  failed  —  gone  away,  I  mean,  without  saying 
what  I  wanted  to  say." 

"I  know,"  Ann  heard  herself  saying. 

"Well,  it's  got  to  be  said  now."  He  paused. 
"What  I've  been  trying  to  tell  you,"  he  said,  "is 
that  I  want  —  no,  that's  not  it  —  that  I  have  de- 
cided that  I  —  I  must  go." 


38  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Give  up  the  agency?" 

He  nodded. 

What  she  had  expected  to  hear  she  did  not  know. 
The  consternation  which  she  felt,  but  which  she 
contrived  not  to  show,  was  evidence,  to  herself,  of 
how  unprepared  she  had  been  to  hear  this.  There 
had  always  been  Mr.  Coram,  first  as  pupil  to  the 
former  agent  who  had  retired  in  course  of  time,  and 
then  as  himself  with  one  assistant  pupil  of  his  own. 
She  had  taken  him  for  granted  more  completely 
even  than  she  had  known. 

She  found  herself  listening  to  his  reasons,  and 
trying  to  understand  them.  He  was  telling  her  that 
he  wanted  to  travel,  see  the  East,  see  the  world.  He 
had  always  wanted  to  travel.  Yes,  she  remembered 
that  he  had  often  spoken  of  that  wish.  Well,  he  was 
thirty-two  now,  and  since  the  death  of  an  uncle 
some  ten  months  back  —  a  death  by  which  she  re- 
membered to  have  heard  that  he  benefited  —  he  had 
found  himself  likely  to  be  in  a  position  some  day  to 
follow  his  inclination.  The  settlement  of  his  uncle's 
affairs  had  shown  them  to  be  in  a  more  prosperous 
condition  than  he  had  dared  at  first  to  hope.  His 
future  was,  thus,  modestly  assured.  If  he  was  to 
travel  at  all  the  time  seemed  to  be  now.  Every- 
thing was  in  order,  Bulkley,  his  pupil,  a  good  man, 
as  she  knew,  competent,  trustworthy,  thoroughly 
conversant  with  the  business  of  the  estate,  ready,  * 
if  need  be,  to  step  into  his  shoes.  All  that  seemed 
to  hinder  now  was  his  own  reluctance  to  sever  his 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  39 

connection  with  Redmayne,  where  he  had  spent  so 
many  happy  years,  and  where  he  had  met  with  such 
unfailing  kindness. 

Ann  Forrester  heard  him  out.  He  spoke  quickly 
and  yet  with  difficulty  —  eagerly  like  a  boy  asking 
leave,  urging  reasons  as  pleas,  pleas  as  reasons,  but 
diffidently  also  and  with  effort.  Again  she  had  sense 
of  the  room  which,  associated  now  in  her  mind  with 
the  weekly  half-hours  that  had  imperceptibly  become 
a  rhythmic  pleasure  in  her  life,  now  seemed  to  exist 
but  as  a  background  for  her  relations  with  him. 
What  would  the  room  look  like  empty  of  him?  — 
no,  not  empty  of  him  (for  so  little  was  he  there!), 
but  unexpectant  of  him,  not  waiting  for  him  as  a 
certainty  once  a  week  at  least,  and  no  longer  liable 
to  receive  him  at  odd  moments !  What  would  it  look 
like  ten  or  twenty  minutes  hence  even,  when  their 
present  talk  should  have  ended,  and,  with  the 
knowledge  that  all  their  talks  were  now  numbered, 
she  should  have  seen  him  go? 

There  was  silence  for  only  a  few  moments  when 
he  had  spoken,  and  then  Ann  said :  — 

"Well,  I  don't  pretend  that  I  shan't  be  very  sorry 
to  lose  you.  Things  have  gone  very  smoothly  — 
much  more  smoothly  here,  I  gather,  than  with  our 
neighbours,  and  that,  I  know,  is  thanks  to  you.  Then 
at  Redmayne  we  all  look  upon  you  as  a  friend.  Oh, 
many  reasons  why  we  shall  miss  you !  But,  of  course, 
we  must  n't  stand  in  your  way." 

Conventional?  Impersonal?  Stilted  even?  It  had 


40  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

to  be  these.   Only  thus,  mistress  of  herself  as  she 
was,  could  she  trust  herself  to  speak  at  all. 

She  was  standing  she  perceived  suddenly :  and  he 
also  was  standing.  In  his  nervousness  for  what  he 
had  to  say  he  had  prefaced  his  first  words  to  her  — 
all  those  irrelevancies  about  Williams  and  the  re- 
bate —  with  an  'I  shan't  keep  you  a  moment.'  It 
was  this,  perhaps,  which,  giving  the  interview  an  air 
of  transitoriness,  had  kept  both  of  them  uncon- 
sciously on  their  feet. 

Ann  sat  down  now  at  the  table  at  which  they  were 
accustomed  to  sit,  and  after  a  moment  or  two  Mr. 
Coram  followed  her  example.  They  sat  facing  each 
other  across  the  table.  Only  that  there  were  no 
cheques  to  sign,  no  accounts  to  look  over,  they 
might  have  met  for  the  weekly  business. 

"When  do  you  want  to  go?"  she  asked.  It  was, 
indeed,  grasping  her  nettle. 

"  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about  that  —  consult  you. 
I  don't  want  to  do  anything  that  would  in  any  re- 
motest way  be  inconvenient  to  you.  I  hate  the  idea 
of  going.  It's  a  wrench.  One  puts  out  roots,  I  find. 
The  very  land  holds  one  —  the  soil."  ('Only  the 
land?'  thought  Ann  as  she  listened  —  'only  the 
soil?')  "I  shall  hate  to  leave  my  little  house.  I  sit 
looking  at  the  crooked  floors  and  the  beams.  Hate 
to  think  of  any  one  else  in  it  —  even  Bulkley  if  he 
should  take  my  place  and  move  into  it.  I  believe* 
I  'm  homesick  for  it  already."  He  broke  off. 

"You're  not  in  a  hurry  to  go,  then?"  Ann  said, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  41 

venturing.  But  as  she  saw  his  face  she  knew  that  for 
all  his  reluctance  he  did  wish  to  go  soon. 

"No,"  he  said,  "not  in  a  hurry.  I  want  to  meet 
your  convenience.  That 's  the  first  consideration  — 
comes  truly  .  .  .  you  will  believe  this?  .  .  .  before 
anything  else." 

"Yes,"  Ann  said,  "I  will  believe  that." 

Yet  the  words  hurt  her.  'Convenience,'  'con- 
sideration.' She  was  not  alone  in  falling  short  of 
the  personal  note! 

"About  —  about  when  do  you  think?"  she  asked 
him. 

But  that  was  what  he  wanted  her  to  tell  him. 

"It  depends,"  he  said,  "upon  what  you  decide 
—  whether  you  let  Bulkley  replace  me  or  whether 
you  would  like  to  look  out  for  some  one  else." 

Ann  felt  that  Mr.  Bulkley  would  do  as  well  as 
another.  If  Mr.  Coram  went,  she  felt  just  then,  it 
mattered  little  to  her  who  stepped  into  his  shoes. 
Mr.  Bulkley  —  she  liked  him  well  enough  —  knew 
the  tenants,  knew  the  place,  knew  his  work.  She 
would,  also,  still  have,  in  Mr.  Coram's  pupil  and 
understudy,  a  man  who  was  a  gentleman  to  manage 
her  affairs.  Oh,  yes,  Mr.  Bulkley  as  well  as  another. 

"He  would  be  willing,  I  suppose?" 

"  Not  much  doubt  about  that.  I  have  n't  asked 
him,  of  course.  I  could  n't  till  I  had  spoken  to 
you.  It  is  time,  really,  that  he  was  working  on  his 
own  account.  He  certainly  knows  all  I  can  teach 
him." 


42  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"He  could  begin,  then,  at  any  moment?"  Ann 
forced  herself  to  ask. 

"Oh,  yes.  As  far  as  qualifications  go  he's  ready 
this  minute." 

She  would  spare  herself  no  pain.  She  leaned  for- 
ward a  little. 

"When  do  you  really  want  to  go,  Mr.  Coram?" 

"  I  have  said.  When  it  suits  you,  Mrs.  Forrester." 

"If  I  said  that  must  be  when  you  like?" 

"I  think  I  should  be  very  sorry  to  hear  you  say 
that." 

"Why?" 

"Because  that  would  settle  it." 

She  waited,  her  heart  beating  faster.  For  a  new 
thought  had  come  to  her.  Could  it  be  .  .  .  ? 

He  would  surely  but  the  more  want  to  stay.  Yet 
his  embarrassment,  which  was  so  unlike  what  was 
to  be  expected  of  him,  his  obvious  reluctance  —  had 
he  not  said  (nay,  had  she  not  seen?)  that  he  had 
tried  before  this  to  bring  himself  to  the  point  of 
speaking  and  had  failed?  At  the  least  he  was  torn  in 
two  directions.  Could  it  be  that  he  did  not  want  to 
go  at  all,  but  felt  that  he  must?  If,  without  want- 
ing to  go,  he  felt  that  he  must  go,  there  could  be 
but  one  reason.  Could  it  be  that? 

She  felt  suddenly  that  she  did  not  know  men  — 
that  in  all  her  life  she  had  not  known  them:  their 
seeming  simplicity,  so  much  more  baffling  than  all 
the  complexity  —  and  even  subtlety !  —  of  women ! 
You  did,  after  all,  know  where  you  were  with 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  43 

women  because  their  subtleness  was  inherent,  ad- 
mitted, to  be  reckoned  with.  Men  were  different. 
For  their  very  serenity  you  could  not  know  them. 

He  was  speaking.  Sustaining  or  shattering  her 
sudden  hope?  She  did  not  know. 

"  It's  that  I  feel  I  must  go.  I  don't  want  to,  but  I 
must.  It 's  in  my  blood  somehow  —  stronger  than 
I.  And  it's  also  that  whenever  I  do  go  it  will  be  a 
wrench." 

"You  would  like  to  go  soon?" 

"If  I  had  only  myself  to  consider." 

"Leave  me  out  of  this,"  Ann  said  steadily. 

"You  mean  Bulkley  might  take  up  the  work?" 

Ann  nodded. 

"I  could  n't  go  with  an  easy  mind  if  I  thought 
that  the  place  would  suffer.  With  Bulkley  here  I 
should  know  that  it  would  n't." 

"Well,"  Ann  said,  "I  am  quite  willing  that  it 
should  be  Mr.  Bulkley.  I  would  rather  not  have 
any  one  that  I  did  not  know.  If  he 's  .willing,  as  you 
think,  we  can  look  upon  that  matter  as  settled. 
Now,  Mr.  Coram,  you  are  free  to  go  when  you  like, 
or  stay  as  long  as  you  like." 

There.  She  had  said  it.  It  was  for  him  now  to 
speak  or  be  silent  —  give  or  withhold  a  sign.  Was 
any  forthcoming?  She  could  not  tell.  He  seemed 
at  once  sorry  and  relieved.  Well,  he  might  conceiv- 
ably be  both,  and  still  be  actuated  by  such  motives 
as  she  had  dared  to  hope  were  constraining  him. 
He  had  already  said  he  would  be  sorry  to  hear  he 


44  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

might  go  when  he  pleased.  She  was,  as  we  should 
say  in  the  slang  of  these  days,  no  for'arder. 

He  was  thanking  her  now  —  thanking  her  for 
what  he  had  said  he  would  be  sorry  to  be  granted. 
Oh,  —  let  her  not  deceive  herself!  —  one  only  asked 
for  what  one  really  wanted. 

"  I  can't  say  how  kind  I  think  it  is  of  you.  I  should 
never  be  able  to  tell  you  how  much  I  have  appre- 
ciated your  kindness  to  me  always." 

" But  you  want  to  go,"  Ann  was  thinking.  "You 
want  to  go." 

Yes.  It  was  plain  that  he  wanted  to  go.  She 
leaned  back  in  her  chair.  The  interview  was  over. 


CHAPTER  V 

WHEN  he  had  left  her,  blankness  descended  upon 
her  like  a  cloud.  For  some  moments  she  could  not 
think;  then  once  more  her  mind  began  to  work. 

Here,  then,  as  she  had  foreseen  it,  was  the  room 
empty,  but  with  an  emptiness  foreshadowing  the 
permanent  emptiness  that  was  to  be.  What  did  it 
feel  like —  look  like?  Her  eyes,  raking  it,  searched 
it  for  him.  There  he  had  sat  —  the  chair  still  askew 
as  he  had  left  it  when .  he  got  up.  His  arms  had 
rested  on  the  table  while  he  talked.  She  remem- 
bered that  he  had  played  with  the  pen-tray  in  front 
of  him,  and  that  at  one  moment  he  had  broken  the 
point  of  one  of  the  sharpened  pencils  which  lay  in  it. 
She  had  often  watched  those  strong  hands  of  his 
sharpening  a  pencil.  They  performed  actions  re- 
quiring delicacy  as  well  and  as  easily  as  those  which 
made  demands  upon  their  muscles.  How  did  she 
know  that?  Sharpening  a  pencil  meticulously  was 
nothing.  How  did  she  know  that  the  strong  fingers 
could  do  delicate  things?  In  so  many  and  even  in 
such  unusual  guises  could  she  visualize  him,  now, 
that  the  answer  could  only  be  that  there  had  never 
been  a  time  when  she  had  not  been  conscious  —  nay, 
acutely  conscious  —  of  him.  She  could  see  him  tying 
a  fly,  for  instance,  though  it  is  improbable  that  she 
had  often  seen  him  so  employed.  It  was  natural  that 


46  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

she  should  be  able  to  see  him  riding,  driving,  break- 
ing in  a  horse,  for  these,  with  every  sort  of  outdoor 
pursuit  and  occupation,  were  part  of  his  life.  Thus  it 
was  that  horses  and  dogs  and  guns  associated  them- 
selves most  readily  with  him  in  those  pictures  which, 
bidden  and  unbidden,  rose  before  her.  But  there 
were  less  usual  aspects  in  which  she  could  see  him 
very  clearly  also,  and  it  was  those  that  showed  her 
how  closely  she  must  have  observed  him.  Yes,  very, 
very  conscious  of  him  under  an  unexplained  uncon- 
sciousness of  herself!  She  filled  the  empty  room  with 
visions  .  .  . 

Then  —  strange  anomaly!  —  the  days,  leaden 
hours  composing  them,  took  to  themselves  wings. 
She  did  not  know  how  to  get  through  each  day  for 
the  burden  of  it,  and  yet  day  after  day  slipped  from 
her.  How  could  that  which  seemed  so  unbearably 
long  pass  so  quickly?  For  she  knew  that  each  day  as 
it  went  diminished  a  tale  of  days  that,  perhaps  sud- 
denly, would  show  itself  from  the  first  to  have  been 
very  meagre.  She  knew  that  he  meant  to  go  soon. 
Visits,  from  time  to  time,  to  London,  told  her  that 
he  was  making  his  arrangements,  seeing  to  his  out- 
fit, settling  his  affairs.  He  meant  to  cut  himself 
adrift  for  a  time  from  the  land  of  his  birth.  He 
wanted  to  be  free  to  go  where  he  liked.  He  had  few 
ties.  He  was  seeing  to  it,  she  believed,  that  when  ne 
went  he  should  have  none. 

He  talked  to  her  sometimes  of  his  plans  and  she 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  47 

listened.  She  gave  no  sign  of  the  feelings  that  held 
her.  Her  control  of  herself  sometimes  surprised  her. 
She  could  smile  as  she  listened. 

"You  think  all  this  childish,"  he  said  one  day. 
He  had  been  speaking  of  places  he  wanted  to  see  — 
places  as  far  apart  as  Ceylon,  say,  and  Alaska,  or  the 
West  Indies  and  Yokohama. 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  think  it  childish." 

She  was  really  thinking  it  boyish  —  adorably  boy- 
ish! and  worshipping  the  boy  that  she  saw  in  him. 

"I  was  thinking  that  I  rather  envied  you,"  she 
added  after  a  moment's  pause. 

They  were  walking  in  the  garden.  Full  summer 
now  —  June,  the  month  that  Ann  Forrester  gen- 
erally spent  in  London.  She  knew  why  she  was  not 
in  London  this  season.  Time  enough  for  London. 
Time  enough  for  London  when  a  desolate  Red- 
mayne  would  not  be  able  to  hold  her.  She  thought 
of  the  busy  life  of  the  season  without  regret. 

"You  see  I've  seen  nothing,"  he  said.  "I  start 
fair." 

He  made  it  so  plain  to  her  that  he  must  go.  It  was 
on  her  tongue  to  say,  "Don't  say  it  again.  I  have 
accepted  your  reasons.  You  tell  me  you  must  go 
and  you  are  going.  I  am  standing  aside."  But  what 
she  did  say  was  that  she  could  understand  his  wish 
to  travel;  and,  even  as  she  spoke,  her  heart,  for  her 
momentary  rebellion,  melted  towards  him.  He  was 
at  once  man  and  boy.  But  he  was  wholly  male  — 
probably,  therefore,  not  very  comprehending  — 


48  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

and  it  was  this  which  she  found  so  baffling.  Impos- 
sible to  know  or  to  read  him. 

There  was  little  going  on  in  the  country  just  then 
—  nothing  to  divert  her  incessant  thoughts.  Most 
of  the  big  houses  in  the  neighbourhood  were  shut 
up,  their  owners  or  occupants  in  London.  She  had 
dined  out  once  or  twice  rather  dismally;  made  an 
effort  and  had  a  few  people  to  dinner.  But  she  was 
only  really  alive  when,  as  now,  she  was  seeing  him, 
or  when  she  knew  that  she  was  soon  to  see  him. 

"Have  you  heard  again  from  your  friend?" 

He  was  waiting,  she  had  learnt,  —  but  only 
learnt  lately,  —  to  know  whether  a  friend  would  be 
able  to  go  with  him.  The  friend's  name  was  Master- 
man,  but  because  upon  the  movement  of  this  friend 
depended  his  movements,  she  could  not  bring  her- 
self to  speak  it. 

" I'm  to  hear  this  week,"  he  said. 

That  was  her  doom.  She  knew  it.  The  friend 
would  be  able  to  go  with.him.  How  could  the  friend 
hesitate?  How  could  one  so  blessed  hesitate?  To 
be  singled  out  and  not  to  know!  If  such  a  chance 
had  come  to  her?  Yes,  to  the  end  of  the  world,  she 
thought.  To  the  edge  of  the  world,  she  thought .  .  . 
and  over  .  .  .  perhaps  over  .  .  . 

Presently  she  learnt  that  the  friend  had  decided 
to  go.  The  date  was  all  that  remained  now  to  be 
settled.  The  week  had  passed  and  it  had  not  been 
settled,  but  everything  was  ready.  The  delay  was 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  49 

something  to  do  with  stocks  and  shares,  she  gath- 
ered. The  friend  (whom  she  wanted  to  hear  noth- 
ing about)  was  waiting  for  a  favourable  moment  to 
realize  and  so  raise  the  money.  He  would  telegraph. 
Telegraph !  How  Ann  hated  the  friend ! 

Then,  when  the  tension  and  the  resultant  strain 
were  most  atrocious,  when  Ann  was  most  at  the 
mercy  of  her  heart  and  her  nerves,  news  came  to  her 
that  a  friend  of  her  own,  one  Claudia  Nanson,  was 
back  from  a  prolonged  sojourn  in  India,  whither  her 
marriage  had  taken  her,  and  whence  her  sudden 
widowhood  had  sent  her  home  to  England.  Claudia 
Nanson  had  always  understood  her.  Claudia  Nan- 
son  must  come  to  her  at  Redmayne.  She  wrote  to  her 
without  delay  and  received  an  answer  almost  by 
return  of  post.  Claudia  Nanson  was  coming  to  her. 

She  waited  with  eagerness  for  the  day  of  her  ar- 
rival and  drove  to  Whitcombe  to  meet  her.  She 
reached  the  station  ten  minutes  before  the  train  was 
due,  but  her  impatience  took  her  from  the  car- 
riage to  the  platform.  There  had  been  a  shower  and 
the  sun  was  shining  on  the  wet  platforms  and  drying 
them  almost  visibly.  Everything  that  could  shine 
seemed  to  be  shining  —  the  tarpaulins  over  some 
trucks  in  a  siding,  the  stacked  coal  in  the  yard  on 
the  other  side  of  it,  the  telegraph  wires,  and  not- 
ably the  double  set  of  lines  which  looked  like  silver 
in  their  exceeding  brightness.  Ann's  spirits  began  to 
rise. 


50  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

The  train  at  length  came  into  sight.  Presently 
Ann  was  welcoming  her  friend. 

The  two  ladies  declared  (and  may  have  thought) 
each  other  quite  unchanged  by  the  years  which  had 
gone  over  their  heads  since  last  they  met.  Widows 
wore  weeds  in  those  days  and  Claudia's  weeds  were 
voluminous  and  very  becoming.  She  contrived  a  few 
very  pretty  tears  at  the  meeting,  —  tears  that  shone 
like  the  effects  of  the  recent  shower  and  were  quite 
as  evanescent,  —  and  remembered  from  time  to  time 
to  show  a  suitable  melancholy ;  but  five  minutes  had 
not  passed  before  Ann  knew  that  she  was  not  in- 
consolable, and  ten  had  not  passed  before  she  knew 
further  that  she  was  enjoying  her  freedom,  that  she 
had  entered,  indeed,  into  a  very  delightful  rest. 

"Dear  Claudia,"  Ann  said  then,  "it  is  so  good  to 
see  you  again." 

"Dearest  Ann,"  said  Mrs.  Nanson,  "outside  my 
own  family  there  is  no  one  else  in  the  world  that  I 
could  have  brought  myself  to  stay  with  in  these  sad 
early  days.  You  are  so  helpful  and  understanding." 

"We  have  both  been  through  sorrow,"  Ann  said. 

Neither  was  conscious  of  any  insincerity,  though 
each  read  the  other.  Friendship  cemented  itself 
afresh  between  them. 

Mrs.  Nanson  put  up  her  veil  once  more.  She  had 
raised  it  on  her  arrival  to  kiss  and  be  kissed  and  show 
the  pretty  tears,  but  had  lowered  it  almost  im- 
mediately. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  51 

"England!"  she  said,  now,  "England!" 

"Yes!"  Ann  said.  She  had  been  right.  Claudia 
would  not  fail  her. 

"England!"  Claudia  said  again. 

"Even  after  the  East!" 

"Because  of  the  East,"  said  Claudia. 

She  breathed  in  deeply  the  fresh,  rain- washed  air. 
Perhaps  you  used  all  the  obvious  similes  then.  She 
did  not  say  that  it  was  like  champagne,  but  she  did 
say  that  it  was  like  a  draught  of  pure  spring  water. 

"And  the  green,  Ann.    The  wonderful  freshness." 

Ann  supposed  the  East  was  rather  'parched.' 

"Well,  there's  the  rainy  season,  you  know.  Look 
at  that  grass!  Just  look  at  those  trees!" 

She  had  been  to  Redmayne  before,  but  only  once 
and  not  at  this  time  of  year.  The  country  was  look- 
ing its  best  — green  as  she  said  and  fresh,  and  at  once 
cool  and  warm  also.  Everything  pleased  her.  The 
sky  that  day  was  exquisite  —  blue  with  ^clouds  of 
dazzling  whiteness,  which  cast  floating  shadows 
on  to  the  hills  and  uplands.  Her  eyes  followed  the 
clouds,  followed  their  shadows.  Cattle  in  the  fields 
delighted  her;  a  flock  of  sheep  which  the  carriage 
met  on  the  road  and  through  which  it  passed  clear- 
ing a  way  for  itself;  some  horses  in  a  paddock.  She 
gave  little  rapturous  exclamations. 

And  from  time  to  time  remembered. 

Ann,  yielding  to  the  influence  of  her  friend's 
pleasure,  felt  happier.  She  in  turn  remembered 
from  time  to  time,  but  while  Claudia  remembered  to 


52  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

be  unhappy,  —  or  that  she  ought  to  seem  unhappy, 
—  Ann  remembered  how  very  unhappy  she  was. 

So  occasionally  they  fell  into  a  silence  which  the 
sound  of  the  trotting  hoofs  broke  rhythmically. 

Claudia  always  recovered  herself  in  a  moment  or 
two.  Something  caught  her  attention  and  she  forgot, 
or  thought  of  something  that  she  wanted  to  say  and 
must  say  it  whether  or  not  it  was  in  accord  with  the 
spirit  of  the  previous  interval. 

Out  of  such  a  silence,  when  her  thoughts  were 
supposed  to  have  fled  to  the  grave  in  India,  she  said 
it  with  a  little  spurt  of  laughter:  — 

"I  know  what  it  was  like  —  the  waters  of  the 
Red  Sea." 

Ann  was  astray  —  perhaps  because  the  Red  Sea 
was  itself  on  the  way  to  India,  whither,  at  the  guid- 
ance of  a  rather  pointed  sigh,  she  had  directed  her 
own  thoughts. 

"The  sheep,  you  know,"  said  Claudia.  "They 
parted  before  us  —  even  piled  themselves  up  on 
each  side  of  us,  and  the  carriage,  like  the  chariots  of 
Israel,  went  through  on  —  on  —  dry  ground." 

It  was  the  yards  of  crape  that  made  Claudia  so 
droll.  Ann's  heart  warmed  to  her.  Some  one  to 
whom  it  was  conceivable  that  you  might  be  able  to 
tell  the  things  that  you  did  not  tell ! 

"I  was  right,  Claudia.  You  haven't  changed," 
she  said. 

"Ah,  I'm  older  inside,"  said  Claudia. 

They  were  approaching  the  house.    Just  before 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  53 

they  reached  the  lodge  gates  a  horseman  passed 
them.  It  was  Timothy  Coram.  He  looked  amazingly 
handsome.  It  was  inevitable  that  his  appearance 
should  excite  comment  from  the  newcomer. 

Claudia,  when  Ann  had  told  her  who  he  was,  said 
nobody  ought  to  be  so  good-looking.  That  it  was  n't 
fair. 

"It  isn't,  is  it?"  said  Ann,  glad  to  be  able  to 
speak  lightly.  "But  fair  to  whom?" 

"To  anybody,"  said  Claudia. 

"His  rivals?" 

Claudia  nodded. 

"Or  his  victims,"  she  added. 

"Well,  both  are  to  be  relieved  of  him,"  said  Ann. 
"He's  going." 

"Going?" 

"Resigning  the  agency." 

"How  can  you  let  him?"  said  Claudia.  Her  eyes 
scanned  Ann's  face. 

"He  wants  to  travel,"  Ann  said  shortly. 

No  more  was  said  just  then.  Soon  the  carriage 
had  passed  in  through  the  second  gate,  and  she  was 
welcoming  Claudia  to  the  house. 

Claudia  had  spent  her  time  in  London  in  buying 
clothes.  She  had  reached  England,  she  declared, 
with  little  more  than  she  stood  up  in.  Two  years  of 
mourning  were  before  her:  a  year  of  deep  mourning, 

—  such  crapes  and  lawns  as  she  was  now  wearing, 

—  to  be  followed  by  a  year  of  slowly  decreasing  woe- 


54  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

fulnesses,  merging  through  greys  into  the  mauves 
and  purples  which  would  at  length  end  them.  What 
use,  then,  to  keep  what  would  be  old-fashioned  long 
before  the  prescribed  period  was  over?  She  had 
given  away  almost  everything.  She  made  Ann  laugh 
with  her  descriptions  of  the  varying  attitudes  of  the 
recipients  of  her  bounty. 

"It  was  'Dearest  Mrs.  Nanson,  are  you  sure  you 
have  no  use  for  it?'  if  it  was  n't  an  'Oh,  I  could  n't 
think  of  it!'  or  an  'Of  course,  it's  very  kind  of  you, 
but .  .  .'  In  the  end  I  was  able  to  persuade  most 
of  them,  and  had  even  a  little  difficulty  in  sticking 
to  what  I  did  want." 

Claudia,  then,  had  a  trunkful  of  new  dresses,  and, 
the  report  of  them  reaching  Ann's  ears,  Ann,  for  the 
honour  of  the  house,  but  chiefly  to  please  the  im- 
pressed Branton,  suffered  herself  to  be  arrayed  a 
little  more  elaborately  for  dinner  than  had  been  her 
habit  of  late.  It  was  thus  two  very  'fashionable* 
ladies  who  sat  down  to  dinner  that  night  in  the  big 
dining-room,  and  in  the  servants'  hall  it  was  said 
that  the  visitor's  arrival  had  done  good  already. 

Unquestioning  and  unquestioned  days  when  each 
naturally  fitted  into  that  state  of  life  to  which  it 
had  pleased  God  to  call  him,  and  the  server  took 
pride  in  the  grandeur  of  the  served!  Something  to 
be  said  for  such  days.  Ann  did  not  question  them. 
It  would  not  have  entered  her  head  to  question 
them.  Claudia  from  India  certainly  did  not  ques- 
tion them.  It  is  safe  to  say  it  would  not  have  oc- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  55 

curred  to  the  butler  to  question  them,  or  to  either  of 
the  two  footmen  slipping  round  the  table  so  noise- 
lessly and  anticipating  the  wants  and  requirements 
of  their  mistress  and  her  guest  sitting  up  in  their 
glory.  Branton  would  not  have  questioned  them. 
Piper  in  the  housekeeper's  room,  with  her  piano 
and  her  brocaded  curtains  and  her  portrait  on  porce- 
lain, would  not  have  questioned  them.  Short  shrift 
on  the  part  of  Piper  for  any  underling  in  that  house 
who  had  dared  to  question  them.  Safe,  comfortable 
days  before  the  world  worried  itself  with  thought! 
The  best  were  at  the  top. 

It  was  that  afternoon,  a  propos  howsoever  indi- 
rectly, that  a  kitchen-maid  had  been  summarily 
dismissed  for  trusting  love  and  a  lover  over-well. 
Ann,  distressed  for  the  girl's  fate,  for  she  had  noticed 
her  and  liked  her,  —  yet  distressed  in  an  aloof  sort  of 
way,  all  the  same,  as  one  might  be  distressed  to  read 
of  a  massacre  in  China,  or,  more  aptly,  of  the  lynch- 
ing of  a  negro  in  a  Western  State,  —  had  concurred 
in  the  summariness,  nothing  doubting.  No  one  had 
doubted  —  not  Piper,  terrible  in  her  scandalized 
virtue;  not  Mrs.  Thomas  the  cook;  not  one  of  the 
domestic  staff;  least  of  all  the  weeping  girl  herself. 
The  best  were  automatically  at  the  top,  the  law- 
givers, the  served.  It  was  for  the  rest  to  minister 
and  to  behave  themselves. 

"But  how  comes  it,"  asked  Claudia,  "that  at  this 
time  of  year  you're  not  in  London?" 

Ann  had  expected  some  such  question,  but  found 


56  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

that  she  was  not  prepared  for  it.  So  much  was  in- 
volved and  so  little.  She  had  not  made  up  her  mind 
yet  whether  she  had  sent  for  Claudia  to  confide  in 
her,  or  whether  she  wanted  her  mere  company  in  her 
loneliness.  Meanwhile  she  took  refuge  in  the  truth, 
knowing  that  the  surest  way  to  conceal  it  was  to 
tell  it. 

"  I  think  it  was  the  cuckoo  that  was  primarily  re- 
sponsible," she  said.  "I  heard  him  one  day  —  or 
rather  I  listened  to  him." 

"The  cuckoo?"  said  Claudia;  "what  did  he  tell 
you?" 

"To  open  my  eyes  and  look  about  me." 

"The  Serpent's  advice  to  Eve,"  said  Claudia. 

"Nevertheless,  I  thought  I  would  take  it,"  said 
Ann  after  a  little  pause. 

Had  she  quite  reckoned  with  Claudia  when  she 
had  settled  that  the  truth  may  be  counted  upon  to 
conceal  the  truth? 

"After  the  drive  from  the  station  to-day," 
Claudia  was  saying,  "the  beauty  of  the  country 
and  all  that  it  offers,  I  think  I  don't  wonder  that 
you  stayed." 

In  the  boudoir,  whither  they  adjourned  after 
dinner,  the  two  ladies  occupied  themselves  with 
their  needlework.  They  were  both  doing  the  sa^ne 
kind  of  work.  The  days  of  the  antimacassar  were 
over,  and  the  crochet-hook  had  gone  the  way  of  the 
tatting-bobbin.  Crewel-work  had  hardly  yet  ar- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  57 

rived.  In  fifty  thousand  drawing-rooms  at  that  mo- 
ment ladies,  in  the  same  preposterous,  yet  rather 
delightful  trappings,  were  employed  in  the  same 
sort  of  way.  There  may  have  been  a  name  for  the 
lace  (was  it?)  which,  in  miles  that  must  have  been 
numberless,  resulted.  A  faint  blue  tracing  on  paper 
had  its  important  place  amongst  the  materials  in- 
volved. What  was  finished  of  the  work  accom- 
panied what  was  in  course  of  being  done  in  a  neat 
roll  which  was  unpinned  from  time  to  time  for  in- 
spection, admiration,  or  comparison.  The  supreme 
moment  towards  which  the  worker  consciously  or 
unconsciously  strained  was  that  in  which  she  might 
tear  away  the  paper  scaffolding  and  display  the  com- 
pleted structure.  Claudia  as  she  worked  bowed  her 
head  over  her  needle;  Ann,  sitting  more  upright,  held 
her  work  nearer  to  her  eyes. 

They  worked  and  talked.  The  sound  of  the  crin- 
kling tissue  paper,  of  the  clicking  scissors,  or  of  the 
needles  and  thread  passing  in  and  out  of  the  fab- 
rics, filled  the  pauses. 

Claudia  bit  her  thread.  Ann  cut  hers.  "So  peace- 
ful," Claudia  said,  holding  her  work  away  from  her 
a  little,  looking  at  it  and  pecking  at  it  with  her 
needle.  "I'm  quite  sure  that  I  understand  your 
being  here  instead  of  in  clamorous  London." 

Ann  wondered  whether  she  did. 

Claudia  pecked  a  little  more  at  a  pucker  in  her 
work. 

"That  good-looking  young  man,"  she  said,  with- 


58  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

out  raising  her  eyes  from  what  she  was  doing  — 
"why  does  he  want  to  travel?" 

"Why  not?"  said  Ann. 

She  did  not  mean  to  let  Claudia  force  her 
hand. 

"Oh,  well,"  said  Claudia,  still  pecking.  "Agencies 
like  yours  don't  grow  on  every  bush,  do  they?  I  Ve 
always  understood  that  a  good  land-agency  was  a 
very  hard  thing  to  get.  People  generally  have  rela- 
tions of  their  own  —  younger  sons  and  cousins  and 
things  —  only  too  glad  to  be  put  in.  One  of  my  poor 
Robert's  brothers  tried  for  years  to  get  a  land- 
agency.  And  ended  by  having  to  go  into  an  insur- 
ance office,  where  he  died  —  without  having  insured 
his  own  life  I  may  say!  —  so  it  is  n't  a  thing  to  give 
up  lightly." 

"Perhaps  Mr.  Coram  isn't  giving  it  up  lightly," 
said  Ann.  "He  is  old  enough,  anyway,  to  know  his 
own  mind." 

"He  is  about  our  age,  I  suppose,"  said  Claudia. 

"He  is  thirty- two,  if  you  want  to  know,"  said 
Ann. 

"Yes,"  said  Claudia  imperturbably,  "I  always 
do  like  knowing  how  old  people  are." 

"And  he  won't  have  to  look  for  another  berth," 
said  Ann,  determining  to  be  generous,  partly  be- 
cause she  had  no  particular  objection  to  grati-  , 
fying  Claudia's  curiosity,  but  more  because  she 
found  it  did,  indeed,  ease  her  to  talk  of  the  person 
in  whom  all  her  thoughts  centred.  "He  has  come 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  59 

into  some  money.  He  is  independent  of  what  he 
may  earn." 

That  gave  Claudia  to  think  —  not  merely  because 
it  was  more  rare  to  hear  of  people  who  came  into 
money  than  of  people  who  had  lost  that  which  they 
had.  What  Ann  told  her  put  Mr.  Coram,  perhaps, 
on  a  new  footing.  Involuntarily  her  eyes  fluttered 
round  the  room  with  its  rather  sumptuous  appoint- 
ments. She  —  Claudia  Nanson  —  had  not  been  for 
a  walk  in  a  wood.  She  had  not  had  a  vision  of  sheer 
beauty.  No  inaudible  voices  had  spoken  to  her. 
She — Claudia  Nanson — thought  Ann's  room  lovely. 
Its  satins  and  its  gildings  delighted  her.  When  she 
entered  the  room  first  she  had  expressed  ecstatic 
admiration  for  it,  for  its  arrangement,  for  all  that 
it  held.  It  was  a  woman's  room  and  a  rich  woman's 
room.  What  Ann  had  seen  —  perceived  rather  —  as 
only  just  on  this  side  of  vulgarity,  as  only  saved, 
that  is,  from  being  vulgar,  by  the  intrinsic  'good- 
ness' of  all  that  it  contained  or  all  that  composed 
it,  she  —  Claudia  Nanson  —  saw  as  wholly  and  en- 
viably admirable.  From  the  Buhl  cabinet  (which  one 
of  these  days  —  who  knew?  —  might  go  the  way 
of  the  porcelain  'enlargement'  now  in  the  house- 
keeper's room)  to  the  hanging  satin  and  bead  work 
screens,  with  their  shining  gold  rods,  Claudia  found 
everything  perfect. 

She  made  no  comment  upon  the  information  Ann 
had  vouchsafed  her,  but,  bending  over  her  work 
again,  said,  "He  looks  well  on  a  horse." 


60  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"My  dear,  you  seem  quite  interested  in  him." 

"Yes,"  said  Claudia,  plying  her  needle  attentively. 
"Are n't  you?" 

Ann  did  not  answer  for  a  moment  and  Claudia 
looked  up. 

"Oh,  I'm  accustomed  to  him,"  said  Ann  then. 

Tea  was  brought  in  at  this  moment  and  made  a 
diversion.  Ann  was  not  sure  whether  she  was  glad 
or  sorry.  She  watched  the  servants  setting  the  tea- 
table  in  order,  and  when  they  had  done  so  and  had 
left  the  room,  she  took  her  place  behind  the  urn 
and  busied  herself  with  the  cups. 

"This,"  said  Claudia,  "is  what  I  do  enjoy.  My 
poor  Robert  had  his  little  economies,  and  tea  in  the 
evening  was  one  of  them.  I  would  n't  have  minded 
if  his  economies  had  been  necessary." 

She  took  the  cup  which  Ann  handed  to  her. 

"Poor  Robert,"  she  said,  "he  never  really  liked 
tea." 

Ann  did  not  echo  her  sigh  this  time,  nor  indeed 
repress  a  smile  of  her  own.  She  was  beginning  to  see 
—  was  surely  even  intended  to  see  —  exactly  how 
consolable,  or  even  consoled,  Claudia  was.  From  the 
dimness  of  her  school-days,  moreover,  a  memory  was 
making  its  way  to  her,  piercing  its  way  through 
the  mists  much  as  the  carriage  that  day  —  to  find 
another  analogy  for  the  incident  —  had  forged  a 
way  for  itself  through  the  sheep.  She  had  it  now. 
Half  a  dozen  girls  in  the  senior  classroom  at  Miss 
Petrie's  in  Brussels,  chocolate-eating,  in  the  tempo- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  61 

rary  absence  of  the  school-mistress,  and  engaged  in 
a  discussion  on  what  they  would  like  to  be.  As  she 
stirred  her  tea  absently  she  reconstructed  the  scene. 

One  had  said :  a  famous  singer  —  like  Patti. 

Another:  an  eminent  painter — like  Rosa  Bon- 
heur. 

Another:  a  great  writer  —  like  George  Eliot,  or 
Mrs.  Henry  Wood. 

A  fourth  —  one,  Clara  Harbinger,  the  daring  girl 
of  the  school,  wearing  her  crinoline  already  with  an 
air,  and  always  alert  to  shock,  or  at  least  to  contrive 
a  sort  of  giggling  consternation  amongst  her  fellows: 
a —  yes,  boldly,  brazenly!  —  a  King's  Mistress. 

Ann  remembered  that  the  bomb  Clara  Harbinger 
thus  exploded  had  duly  had  its  success,  its  succ&s, 
that  is,  de  scandale,  but  when  all  was  said  the  real 
success  of  the  discussion  was  voted  to  have  fallen 
not  to  her,  but  to  Claudia,  who  modestly  wanted 
to  be  what  was  more  within  the  boundaries  of  pos- 
sibility. Ann,  looking  at  her  from  behind  the  urn, 
could  hear  her  saying  it  now. 

"I,"  had  said  Claudia,  "don't  want  to  be  a  great 
anything,  but  don't  on  that  account  imagine  that 
I  am  without  my  ambitions.  I  look  round  me  and  I 
see  restraints  hemming  me  in  on  every  side.  Here 
I  am  called  upon  to  submit  to  my  teachers  —  my 
pastors  and  masters.  When  I  leave  shall  I  be  free? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.  I  shall  have  to  go  on  submitting  to 
my  parents  and  guardians.  When  I  marry"  — 
("//you  marry!"  from  Clara;  and,  "Let  her  alone," 


62  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

from  the  others;  "Let  us  hear!  Go  on,  Claudia. 
When,  as  you  say,  you  marry  — ")  —  "I  shall  have 
to  submit  to  my  husband.  So  I  know  exactly  what 
/  want  to  be."  ("What's  that?"  from  every  one.) 
"Why,  naturally,"  said  Claudia,  "a  widow." 

Fourteen  or  fifteen  years  back,  but  Ann  remem- 
bered! 

So  it  was  a  Claudia  who  had  her  wish  —  however 
little  she  had  meant  her  wish  seriously!  —  who, 
while  she  sighed  from  time  to  time,  was  very  plainly 
enjoying,  at  any  rate,  her  tea.  Ann  wondered 
whether  she  too  remembered.  Before  Claudia  left 
her,  —  before  the  visit  should  be  over,  —  Ann 
thought  she  would  ask  her. 

No  more  was  said  of  Timothy  Coram  that  night. 
At  about  a  quarter  to  eleven  the  two  ladies  bade 
each  other  good-night,  Ann  having  seen  her  guest  to 
her  room,  but  having  declined  her  invitation  to  stay 
and  talk,  on  the  plea  that  she  had  letters  to  write 
when  she  went  to  her  own.  By  a  quarter  to  twelve 
Claudia,  in  the  delightful  four-post  bed,  had  pleas- 
antly read  herself  ("Ought  We  to  Visit  Her")  into 
a  state  of  sleepiness,  which,  when  the  effort  of  blow- 
ing out  the  candles  had  been  made  and  darkness 
enveloped  her,  rapidly  merged  into  a  state  of  bliss- 
ful, untroubled  sleep.  Ann,  after  Branton's  minis- 
trations were  over,  wrote  her  letters,  which  had  to 
do  with  the  erring  kitchen-maid,  whom,  though  she 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  63 

had  allowed  her  to  be  dismissed  at  a  moment's  no- 
tice, she  did  not  intend  to  leave  friendless,  and 
sought  at  length  her  own  couch.  Not  to  read. 
Not,  she  feared,  to  sleep.  To  think  and  think  and 
think. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ANOTHER  day  had  gone  of  the  days  which  she  knew 
only  too  well  were  to  be  few.  It  had  given  her  one 
glimpse  of  the  man  who  had  her  heart  —  the  heart 
which  he  did  not  even  know  was  offered  to  him.  If 
it  was  offered  to  him!  Was  it  offered  to  him?  She 
herself  did  not  know.  It  had  given  her  Claudia  and 
the  solace,  the  amusement  even,  which  Claudia  — 
funny  Claudia!  —  afforded  her.  She  was  better  for 
the  coming  of  Claudia.  She  had  got  through  a  cer- 
tain number  of  hours  tolerably,  but  by  so  many 
hours  —  she  always  came  back  to  this !  —  by  so 
many  hours  were  the  hours  that  remained  to  her 
reduced  .  .  . 

She  made  no  attempt  to  fly  from  love's  sickness 
now.  To  what  end?  The  poet  in  his  poet's  wisdom 
knew.  You  were  yourself  your  own  fever  and  pain. 
The  last  word  was  there.  There  was  humiliation  in 
the  thought.  But  there  was  pride  also.  If  it  had  not 
been  for  the  pride  that  was  there,  and  that  turned 
the  humiliation  into  a  sort  of  glory,  she  could  not, 
she  thought,  have  borne  her  suffering.  '  Borne '  ?  — 
the  word  was  meaningless.  There  is  no  escape  from 
suffering.  You  had  to  bear  what  you  were  sent  — 
had  to  bear  certainly  what,  as  in  the  case  of  her  pres-* 
ent  distemper,  you  brought  upon  yourself. 

So,  while  her  guest  slept  the  complacent  sleep 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  65 

of  her  achieved  widowhood,  she,  widow  also,  but 
widow  who  had,  perhaps,  never  really  known  wife- 
hood,  fought  her  way  through  the  unendingnesses 
of  the  night.  Towards  morning  she  slept,  and  woke, 
when  she  did  wake,  calmer  —  woke  refreshed,  for 
no  apparent  reason  unless  that  for  its  very  acute- 
ness  her  unhappiness  had  temporarily  exhausted 
itself;  refreshed,  fortified,  cheerful  even. 

Was  she  uncertain,  variable?  Did  her  moods 
fluctuate  unduly?  —  ebb  and  flow  ungoverned  by 
any  moon?  St.  Paul,  who  wrote  indirectly  of  love, 
wrote  directly  enough  of  widows.  Was  his  a  last 
word  also?  Ann  was  to  ask  herself  that  when,  at  the 
family  prayers  which  her  husband,  though  he  had 
never  attended  them,  had  always  insisted  should 
begin  the  day  for  his  household,  she  found  herself 
reading,  as  the  portion  of  Scripture  which  had  part 
in  them  that  morning,  the  seventh  chapter  of  the 
First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians. 

She  read  without  a  tremor;  nay,  with  an  inward 
smile.  But  she  was  not  sorry  that  Claudia  was  late 
for  prayers. 

Claudia  came  into  the  room  as  the  servants  —  one 
short  —  filed  out  of  it. 

Claudia  looked  very  fresh  and  sweet  and  young  by 
the  searching  light  even  of  the  early  day.  India  had 
not  wholly  robbed  her  complexion  of  its  fairness,  and, 
what  India  had  taken,  the  becoming  contrast  of  the 
blackness  of  her  appointments  restored  in  full  meas- 


66  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

ure.  The  sun  was  streaming  into  the  room.  As  she 
kissed  Ann,  who  in  her  cool  morning  gown  of  brown 
holland,  looked  equally  fresh  if  a  little  pale  after 
her  wakeful  night,  she  seemed,  her  blacks  not- 
withstanding, a  very  part  of  the  prevailing  bright- 
ness. 

"It  does  me  good  just  to  look  at  her,"  Ann  was 
thinking. 

"Bacon,"  Claudia  said,  sniffing deliciously ;  "Eng- 
lish bacon !  And  English  hot  rolls !  And  home-made 
bread !  Smells  you  don't  get  in  the  East.  My  heart 
warms  to  them.  How  can  anybody  want  to  leave 
England?" 

Already?  So  early  in  the  day!  Had  she  not  parted 
with  the  idea  all  night?  Ann  had  occasion  again 
for  her  inward  smile.  There  had  always  been  some- 
thing roguish  in  Claudia.  That,  after  all,  was  why 
she  liked  her.  It  was  certainly  why  Claudia  just 
then  was  so  good  for  her.  But  she  did  not  mean  to 
be  drawn  into  talking  of  Timothy  Coram  yet,  or, 
indeed,  before  she  herself  was  ready  to  talk  of  him 

—  if,  at  all,  she  should  be  ready  to  talk  of  him;  so 
instead  of  answering,  as  it  was  her  first  impulse  to 
answer,  that  man  did  not  live  by  bread  alone,  — 
home-made  bread  even,  English,  and  hot  with  that, 

—  she  contented  herself  with  proposing  that,  as 
breakfast  was  ready  and  her  guest  happily  hungry, 
they  should  fall  to. 

"With  all  my  heart,"  said  Claudia. 

"The  organ  that  warms  to  the  smell  of  it?" 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  67 

"The  same,"  said  Claudia,  "with  the  concurrence 
of  one  or  two  others." 

On  a  light  note,  then,  a  cheerful,  bantering  note, 
the  day  began. 

Outside  there  was  not  a  cloud  in  the  sky.  The 
windows  were  open  to  the  gardens.  Roses  looked  in 
—  roses  that  asked  to  be  picked  and  that  asked  also, 
so  fair  were  they  in  their  natural  setting,  to  be 
spared.  If  you  looked  very  closely  you  might  see  that 
dew  in  round  shining  drops  was  still  on  the  petals 
of  some  of  them.  Ann  as  she  waited  for  Claudia  had 
seen  it  and  spoken  of  it.  Claudia  had  to  jump  up 
and  slip  over  to  the  window  to  see  too.  She  was  like 
a  happy  child.  She  gave  her  little  cry  of  delight. 
There  was  only  one  thing  more  beautiful  than  a  dew- 
drop  on  a  rose  petal,  she  declared,  as  she  went  back 
to  her  place,  and  that  was  a  dew-drop  on  a  cabbage- 
leaf  —  a  fat  dew-drop  (a  rain-drop  might  do !)  that 
ran  about  like  quick-silver  without  wetting  the  leaf 
or  breaking,  and  that,  for  the  sheer  beauty  of  it,  you 
wanted  to  break. 

"A  diamond  shaped  like  a  pearl  —  more  beau- 
tiful than  any  diamond,  than  any  pearl.  One  wants 
to  possess  it.  So  one  breaks  it." 

Ann  was  momentarily  betrayed  into  saying  the 
sort  of  thing  that  she  did  n't  say  or  even  believe. 

"  Possess  anything,"  she  said,  "and  find  either  that 
it  never  was  there,  or  that  you  have  destroyed  it." 

Perhaps  it  was  Claudia  who  was  uncertain.  For 
Claudia  at  once  said,  "StuffJ" 


68  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Ann  considered  for  a  moment. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "you're  quite  right."  And  held 
out  a  laughing  hand  for  Claudia's  cup. 

Perhaps  she  would  tell  her.  She  saw  that  Claudia 
at  least  was  ready  —  ready  for  any  confidence  which 
she  might  concede  to  her  or  offer  her.  There  was  an 
'And  you  know  it!'  tacked  on  to  the  'Stuff!'  Yes, 
and  Ann  did  know  it,  her  spirits  rising.  Claudia 
meant,  'Why  should  you  not  want  what  you  want? 
—  yes,  and  get  it,  and  getting  it,  see  that  it  is  good?' 
She  felt  that  she  would  be  able  to  tell  Claudia.  If 
need  should  be.  Yes,  only  if  need  should  be. 

Claudia,  upon  her  part,  eating  a  very  good  break- 
fast, was  not,  it  was  plain,  in  any  hurry  either.  She 
laughed  and  talked,  remembering  less  often  to  pull 
herself  up,  and  presenting  altogether  a  less  artificial 
aspect  —  all  women  were  a  little  artificial  in  the 
seventies!  —  than  that  which  may  be  said  to  have 
presented  her  on  her  arrival.  She  had,  clearly,  a  very 
happy  nature.  She  had  very  pretty  gestures  and 
movements,  which  Ann  liked  to  watch.  Every- 
thing she  did  she  did  neatly.  See  her  now  slowly 
spreading  butter  on  toast,  or  marmalade  on  both. 
Or  see  her  raise  her  cup  to  her  lips,  or  put  it  back 
into  its  saucer.  Was  it  the  precision  of  these  ac- 
tions that  gave  them  their  charm?  She  had  the 
alertness  of  a  thin  woman  with  the  leisureliness  of  a 
fat  one.  Physically  she  was  between  the  two;  plump 
and  slender. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  69 

"You  shall  meet  Mr.  Coram,"  Ann  said  later  in 
the  morning. 

"Mr.  Coram?" 

Claudia  pretended  not  to  remember;  and  then 
pretended  to  remember. 

"Oh,  yes,  to  be  sure:  Mr.  Coram." 

"I  am  asking  him  to  dinner  to-morrow  night." 

Perhaps  because  she  had  pretended,  Claudia 
thought  it  necessary  to  demur  a  little.  She  mur- 
mured something  about  'just  yet*  and  looked  at 
her  mourning. 

It  was  Ann  this  time  who  said  'Stuff!'  though  her 
actual  words  were:  "Not  a  dinner  party.  Only  Mr. 
Coram  and  ourselves." 

But  Claudia  was  not  really  a  humbug  and  it  was 
Ann's  implied  'Stuff!'  that  she  chose  to  answer  with 
a  show  of  her  pretty,  laughing  teeth,  though  her 
ostensible  answer  was,  Ah,  well,  if  it  wasn't  a 
party  .  .  . 

Ann  was  delighted. 

"  I  would  n't  have  her  any  different,"  she  thought. 
"She  is  helping  me.  I  may  tell  her." 

What  she  knew  in  her  heart  was  that  if  she  did 
tell  her  it  would  be  on  some  sudden  impulse,  in  some 
sudden  desperate  need.  Her  respite  did  not  blind  her. 
This  was  one  of  those  intervals  which  occur  in  bodily 
ailments  —  intervals  in  which  pain  is  suspended 
only  to  return.  It  would  be  when  the  pain  was  there 
that  she  would  speak.  Yet,  even  as  she  knew  that 
she  knew  this  in  her  heart,  she  felt  that  it  was  not 


70  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

inconceivable  that  in  such  a  moment  as  the  present, 
when  she  could  think  dispassionately  and  was  com- 
pletely mistress  of  herself  and  of  her  emotions,  she 
might  speak. 

A  messenger  took  her  note  to  Mr.  Coram's  house, 
and  brought  back  Mr.  Coram's  answer.  He  was 
coming. 

The  ladies  drove  in  the  afternoon.  Claudia  was 
at  her  best  hi  a  carriage  —  or  was  she  at  her  best 
wherever  she  was  and  whatever  she  might  be  doing? 
Luxurious  surroundings  and  accoutrements  suited 
her;  little  grandeurs.  An  engaging  air  of  having  airs 
—  though  never  of  giving  herself  airs  —  was  worn 
gracefully  and  graciously  also.  It  delighted  Ann, 
though  she  saw  through  it.  Claudia  was  accustom- 
ing herself  to  what,  though  she  had  never  had  it,  she 
felt  herself  born  to  —  to  what,  her  fulfilled  wish 
notwithstanding,  she  would  certainly  have  one  of 
these  days,  and,  having,  would  certainly  adorn.  For, 
her  two  years  up,  Claudia  would  marry  again  and 
marry  well.  Ann  was  as  certain  of  that  as  if  she  had 
seen  it  inscribed  in  the  Book  of  Fate. 

As  if  Claudia  guessed  her  thoughts,  Claudia  said 
now:  — 

"Aren't  you  a  lucky  person,   Ann   Forrester! 
Have  n't  the  gods  blessed  you,  my  dear?    I  think 
you   have  everything  the  heart  of  woman  could  * 
desire." 

"I  ought  n't  to  be  discontented." 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  71 

"Are  you  discontented?" 

Here,  if  she  had  been  looking  for  opportunities, 
was  an  opportunity.  Did  Claudia  deliberately  make 
opportunities?  She  herself  had  made  this  one.  Had 
Claudia,  none  the  less,  contrived  it? 

She  was,  of  course,  not  going  to  take  it. 

"I  have,"  she  said  with  a  smile  that  gave  her 
words  the  necessary  inverted  commas,  "much  to 
be  thankful  for." 

Claudia,  settling  herself  amongst  the  cushions 
said,  "I  should  just  think  you  had." 

So  Ann,  eased  for  the  moment,  but  recognizing 
her  respite  as  respite,  marked  time.  She  could  listen 
to  Claudia's  chatter  and  enjoy  it,  aid  and  abet  it. 
Her  heart  was  strangely  at  peace,  lulled,  soothed. 
But  she  never  lost  sight  of  the  imminence  of  reac- 
tion. She  was  not  deceived.  Her  temporary  immu- 
nity would  have  to  be,  and  would  be,  paid  for —  paid 
for  to  the  utmost  farthing. 

"Would  you  like  to  have  a  glimpse  of  the  sea?" 
she  asked  Claudia.  "We  might  go  round  by  Fother- 
ingham." 

The  sea!  Claudia  would  like  that  beyond  every- 
thing. Inwardly  she  hoped  that  Fotheringham  would 
prove  to  be  a  town.  Her  delight  in  the  beauty  of  the 
country  was  quite  unaffected,  but  it  was  nice  to  see 
and  be  seen.  The  bustle  of  a  country  town  was 
always  attractive.  She  looked  forward  to  a  drive  on 
an  early  day  into  Windlestone,  the  large  town  of 
the  neighbourhood;  had  visions  of  shopping;  bare- 


72  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

headed  tradesmen  at  the  carriage  door  taking  your 
orders;  or,  the  steps  let  down,  your  own  rustling 
descent  into  the  shops  themselves.  The  spirit  of  the 
days  of  Patronage  and  of  the  real  splendours  still 
hovered  over  such  shoppings. 

Fotheringham,  then,  meanwhile. 

"Yes,  the  sea,"  she  said.  "The  sea!  How  I  should 
like  to  bathe  again!  I  used  to  be  quite  a  tolerable 
swimmer." 

"We  might  even  manage  a  bathe  for  you,"  said 
Ann  —  "some  morning  when  the  tide  serves." 

"Ah,  no,"  said  Claudia.  "That  wouldn't  quite 
do,  would  it?" 

But  this  time  she  did  n't  sigh,  though  she  mur- 
mured, "In  such  very  deep  mourning." 

Fotheringham,  which  proved  to  be  a  small  town, 
but  still  a  town,  showed  considerable  signs  of  life. 
The  big  Redmayne  barouche  rolled  importantly 
through  the  narrow  streets,  where  hats  were  raised 
to  its  occupants  or  touched  to  its  liveries.  Claudia 
saw  and  was  seen  —  saw  the  market-place  with  its 
stocks,  its  sixteenth-century  town  hall,  and  its  im- 
posing church ;  was  seen  of  all  and  sundry,  and  caused 
quite  a  little  flutter  amongst  the  young  gentlemen 
at  the  bank,  who  —  when  Ann,  bethinking  her  of 
some  business  she  had  to  transact  with  the  manager, . 
had  gone  in  —  came  one  by  one  to  the  window  out- 
side which  the  carriage  was  standing  to  take  a  peep 
over  the  iron  blind  at  the  interesting  creature  in 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  73 

deepest  black  who  sat  in  it  with  such  a  withdrawn 
expression  and  such  plaintively  lowered  eyelids. 
Claudia,  the  pictured  evidence  that  the  exalted  have 
their  sorrows  in  common  with  ordinary  humanity, 
sighed,  enjoying  herself  greatly. 

Then  came  Ann  (who  saw  Claudia's  sad  sweet 
smile  of  greeting,  gauging  its  probable  inspiration, 
and  was  amused)  and  the  drive  was  resumed.  The 
Sea  Front,  on  to  which  the  carriage  emerged  now 
from  the  huddle  of  the  town  itself,  was  shining  hi  the 
bright  afternoon  sun.  Houses  flanked  it  —  lodging- 
houses  for  the  most  part,  with  a  hotel  or  two  and 
the  usual  percentage  of  boarding-houses.  Fothering- 
ham,  at  any  rate,  was  not  affected  by  the  London 
season ;  had,  indeed,  a  season  of  its  own.  The  Fother- 
ingham  season  in  that  year  of  lovely  weather  might 
even  be  said  to  have  begun.  The  lodging-houses, 
with  their  round  bow  windows,  and  their  balconies 
with  the  tin  awnings  and  the  slender  iron  pillars, 
were  already  filling  up.  Fascinating  hours  had  been 
spent  in  these  windows  and  on  those  balconies,  and 
would  continue  to  be  spent  before  walls,  windows, 
balconies,  and  all  should  fall  to  the  speculating 
builder  who  sooner  or  later  would  come  along  and 
demolish  them.  Under  those  tin  awnings  the  Claras 
and  Floras  who  had  deliciously  read  "East  Lynne" 
—  themselves  superseding  the  Emmas  and  Matildas 
who  had  thrilled  to  the  forbidden  magic  of  Lord 
Byron  —  had  given  place  to  the  Ethels  and  Enids 


74  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

who  now  looked  up  from  the  pages  of  the  early 
Ouida  to  watch  the  passing  of  the  carriage. 

All  was  fish  that  came  to  the  net  of  the  Widow 
Claudia.  She  enjoyed  the  admiring  stare  of  the 
people  on  what  was  known  as  the  'Promenard'; 
of  the  elderly  ladies  who  turned  round  or  craned 
their  necks  from  the  seats  and  shelters;  of  even  the 
nurses  and  children.  Nor,  her  enjoyment  of  it  not- 
withstanding (no  one  by  the  same  token,  so  uncon- 
scious of  it  as  she!),  need  we  suppose  her  vulgar. 

The  tide  was  high.  People  were  bathing.  No 
mixed  bathing  then.  A  hundred  discreet  yards  di- 
vided the  two  sets  of  machines.  No  pretty  bathing- 
dresses  then  for  ladies;  no  calculated  glimpses  of 
the  human  form  divine.  (The  human  form  feminine 
—  released,  let  us  remember,  from  stays  which,  if 
they  pulled  it  in  in  one  part,  were  bound  to  push  it 
out  in  another  —  itself  a  little  less  divine,  perhaps, 
in  those  days!)  Voluminous  tunics  the  rigorous 
order;  baggish  ankle-long  trousers;  thick  serges 
trimmed  with  braid;  oilskin  bathing-caps  of  yellow 
with  a  narrow  edging  of  crinkly  hard  red  worsted. 
No;  ladies  bathing  were  not  pretty  in  those  days. 
Susannah  herself  so  clad  for  the  bath  would  have 
attracted  no  elders,  and  the  world  have  lost,  thus, 
at  least  one  moral  tale. 

But  if  bathing  was  uglier  then,  it  was  more  amus-4 
ing  to  watch.  There  was  a  ritual  in  which  dipping 
had  its  part.  One  bather  dipped  another.  So  many 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  75 

dips  were  necessary  —  bane  of  the  bathing  child !  A 
minimum  of  three  was  prescribed.  Parents  and 
guardians  saw  that  this  rite  was  honoured.  The 
Bathing  Woman  in  the  Leach  pictures  in  "Punch" 
still  survived  and  ministered.  Dipping,  one  of  the 
duties  of  her  office.  There  was  the  ritual  of  the  ring. 
Small  companies  of  persons  ranged  themselves  in 
circles  and  bobbed.  There  was  a  little  swimming;  a 
good  deal  of  tentative  swimming;  some  floating  — 
a  friend  at  hand  to  support  if  need  be.  There  were 
decorous  splashings.  But  bobbings  ruled  the  pro- 
cedure. Most  of  the  bathers,  strange  balloony  or 
lank  clothes-clogged  figures,  were  content  to  bob  and 
bob  and  bob.  An  innocent  diversion.  A  happy  ugly 
throng. 

The  carriage  passed  on.  The  view  had  been  tran- 
sitory, but  not  unsatisfying.  Claudia,  however,  no 
longer  wanted  to  bathe.  How  silly  they  looked 
bobbing  up  and  down.  She  said  so. 

"And  their  clothes.  Why  do  they  make  themselves 
so  hideous?" 

"Most  of  them  are  hideous,"  said  Ann,  smiling. 

"But  if  they  were  n't  they  would  still  make  them- 
selves. I  'm  not,  and  I  'm  quite  certain  you  're  not. 
If  one  is  well  made  by  nature,  why  should  one  be 
ashamed  to  acknowledge  it?" 

Very  daring  for  the  seventies !  The  body  then  was 
hardly  supposed  to  exist. 

"Look,"  she  said  vaguely,  "at  the  Venus  of 
Milo." 


76  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

That,  Ann  said,  —  but  said,  still  smiling,  for  she 
liked  Claudia  in  this  mood  and  was  not  the  least 
shocked,  —  that  was  sculpture;  a  statue. 

And  then  as  the  words  themselves,  with  their 
sudden  thrust  to  the  wood  and  what  it  held  en- 
shrined and  hidden,  caused  the  smile  to  falter  and 
die  away  upon  her  lips,  she  had,  before  she  lowered 
her  eyes  almost  in  terror,  the  briefest  but  fullest 
glimpse  of  a  thing  that  was  itself  sculpture ;  a  statue. 

There  was  an  anchored  raft  a  stone's  throw  from 
the  shore.  On  this,  tilting  it  a  little  by  his  weight 
and  swaying  with  it  to  the  rhythm  of  its  gentle 
rocking,  a  bather  stood  poised  for  his  dive.  The 
custom  which  decreed  that  women  should  be  made 
ugly  in  the  water  by  the  cumbersomeness  of  their 
dress  made  no  such  demands  on  men.  Rather,  per- 
haps, did  it  make  less  demand  than  in  these  days. 
That  the  male  should,  in  the  words  of  the  Scriptures, 
be  'girt  about  the  loins'  was  all  that  was  held  neces- 
sary. Timothy  Coram,  stripped,  outlined  in  that 
fleeting  moment  against  the  shining  sea,  was  a  sight 
that  asked  to  be  perpetuated  in  marble  or  bronze. 


CHAPTER  VII 

NOR  was  it  for  nothing  that  Timothy  Coram  was 
cast  in  the  mould  of  the  heroes  of  ancient  Greece. 
If  Ann,  his  patroness,  had  not  been  as  innocent  fun- 
damentally as  a  baby,  she  must  have  known  it.  Her 
own  innocence  and  perhaps  his  shyness,  something 
even  of  an  innate  modesty  in  his  composition, 
blinded  her.  She  was  as  unsuspecting  as  she  was 
innocent.  There  were  merry  wives  even  in  the 
seventies  —  frisky  matrons  who  lived  the  life  even 
then.  Her  dead  husband  would  have  known  —  had 
known.  Then  as  now  there  were  rippling  streams; 
deep  pools.  It  was  not  at  Redmayne  only  that  Tim- 
othy Coram,  the  handsome  young  land-agent,  was 
a  welcome  guest.  He  was  popular  in  the  county.  The 
men  liked  him.  If  the  wives  and  daughters  of  some 
of  them  liked  him  more  than  their  husbands  and 
fathers  knew  —  well,  their  husbands  and  fathers 
did  n't  know  and  that  was  all  about  it.  Not  that 
Timothy  Coram  was  n't  to  be  trusted.  Given  no 
Mrs.  Potiphars,  he  was  to  be  trusted  absolutely.  He 
accepted  a  position  which  was  thrust  upon  him  — 
had,  perhaps,  to  accept  it.  He  was  as  good-natured 
as  he  was  shy. 

Lady  Mallard,  that  bird  of  gay  plumage  and  un- 
ending youth,  —  now,  of  course,  in  London,  —  dined 
often  at  Redmayne;  Ann,  often  with  her  at  Clois- 


78  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

tron.  These  kissed  when  they  met.  Lady  Fother- 
ingham,  that  engaging,  good-looking  trollop  —  her 
lord  had  other  fish  to  fry  and  may  have  winked. 
Miss  Mallinger,  —  lone,  —  thirty,  emancipated,  cold 
as  a  stone  in  her  classical  beauty  to  look  at,  but 
warm,  it  was  said,  to  the  touch.  These  three.  There 
were  others.  These  three  of  Ann's  intimates  —  of 
that  inner  circle  in  which  she  moved.  And  Ann,  un- 
awakened,  didn't  know;  awakening  even,  didn't 
guess.  She  was  of  the  kind  that  gossip  does  n't  reach. 
She  suspected  Lady  Mallard  not  at  all ;  Lady  Fother- 
ingham,  despite  her  exuberance,  —  her  raffishness 
even,  —  as  little  as  she  suspected  the  immaculate,  the 
unsuspectable  Miss  Mallinger.  She  knew,  moreover, 
as  we  have  seen,  of  Timothy's  shyness,  and  thus 
would  not  have  guessed.  She  did  n't  know  that  he 
could  use  it,  make  it  of  service  to  him,  find  shelter 
in  it,  get  behind  it  if  need  be.  When  all  is  said  it  was 
his  muscles  and  his  good-nature  which  were  his  un- 
doing—  if  he  could  truly  be  supposed  to  be  undone! 
He  yielded  rather  than  sought — did  not,  indeed, 
seek,  and  may  have  rebelled  sometimes  when  silken 
cords  threatened  to  choke  him,  or  even  unduly  to 
bind  him.  The  cords  may  have  had  to  do  indirectly 
with  his  wish  to  travel.  What  bound  him  to  Red- 
mayne  and  —  if  she  could  have  known  it  —  to  Ann 
herself  was  that  here  at  least  there  were  no  cords  at* 
all.  He  was  really  unfeignedly  loth  to  leave  Red- 
mayne  and  Ann. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  79 

Yet  he  wanted  to  go.  As  he  bathed  he  had  a  boy's 
visions  of  bathing  in  other  seas,  —  warm  seas, 
crystal-clear,  coral-floored,  or  bottomed  with  golden 
sand,  —  seas,  the  dwellers  and  sojourners  on  the 
coasts  of  which  become,  by  reason  of  the  lure  of 
them,  almost  amphibious.  Yes,  he  wanted  to  see  the 
world;  wanted  the  larger  freedom  of  the  wanderer; 
and,  in  addition  to  these,  did,  indeed,  want  per- 
haps (less  indirectly  than  we  have  just  ventured  to 
guess  at!  ...  not  indirectly  at  all?)  respite  if  not  rest 
from  the  Mallards  and  Fotheringhams  and  Mallin- 
gers  which  here  at  home  had  somehow — in  a  very 
real  unconceit  he  knew  not  how  —  sprung  up  about 
him. 

He  stretched  his  limbs  on  the  swaying  raft — 
wanted  really  to  stretch  them  as  wings.  The  time 
for  migration  was  at  hand. 

He  dived  for  a  last  swim.  He  was  a  strong  swim- 
mer, thrusting  his  way  through  the  water,  pushing 
it  behind  him.  With  clean  strokes  he  cleared  a  pas- 
sage for  himself  through  the  resisting  but  always 
yielding  thing  which  seemed  itself  to  enjoy  the  con- 
test as  much  as  he  —  seemed,  as  a  lover,  to  enjoy 
enveloping  him,  holding  him,  staying  him  if  that 
could  be  or  could  have  been.  So  for  a  hundred  yards 
he  swam  enjoying  the  rapid  motion,  the  push  of  it; 
then  turned  like  a  seal  and  made  leisurely  for  the 
shore. 

Presently,  the    Redmayne  carriage  long  passed, 


8o  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

all  unperceived  and  on  its  way  back  to  Redmayne, 
he  was  splashing  through  shallowing  waters  to  his 
machine,  and  presently  with  the  rough  sun-dried 
towels,  which  smelled  of  the  sun  and  the  sea,  rub- 
bing himself  to  a  glow  on  its  wooden  sandy  floor. 
Even  here  in  the  intimacies  of  the  cramped  box  of 
a  machine,  sculpture  —  the  last  thing  that  would 
have  suggested  itself  to  his  unconsciousness  —  sculp- 
ture all  the  time!  Sitting  on  the  wooden  seat  drying 
his  foot,  he  must,  if  there  had  been  any  there  to  see, 
have  suggested  a  prototype  —  larger,  of  course, 
maturer  —  of  the  sitting  youth  who  looks  for  the 
thorn.  Standing,  his  legs  a  little  apart,  his  right  hand 
running  over  the  muscles  of  his  left  arm,  he  was  the 
athlete  using  the  strigil ;  and  (to  race  across  the  cen- 
turies) stooping  as  he  dried  his  back,  the  towel 
pulled  to  a  rope  across  his  shoulders,  and  his  knees 
bent  with  the  vigour  of  his  exertion,  as  he  plied  it, 
the  Athlete  of  Leighton,  struggling  with  a  Python. 

He  dressed  leisurely,  fetched  his  horse  from  the 
George  III  in  the  High  Street,  and  presently  was 
riding  back  to  Lower  Redmayne. 

Something  was  puzzling  him.  As  he  rode  it  was 
not  of  Mallards  and  Fotheringhams  or  Mallingers 
that  he  was  thinking.  Of  these  he  did  not  at  any  time 
think  more  than  might  be.  He  was  thinking  of  Ann. 
And  he  did  not  know  why  he  was  thinking  of  her  — 
that,  in  itself  a  part  of  what  was  puzzling  him. 
Thoughts  of  her  lately  had  forced  their  way  into  his 
mind.  It  was  as  if  they  hovered  about  him,  waiting, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  81 

watching  even,  for  their  opportunity  to  enter.  They 
came  to  him  from  without  rather  than  from  within, 
while  most  thoughts  —  the  thoughts  of  his  projected 
travels,  for  example  —  came  from  within.  They 
came  to  him,  however,  these  thoughts  of  Ann,  and 
they  came  persistently.  As  he  jogged  home  to  the 
pleasant  tune  of  his  horse's  hoofs  on  the  road,  and 
of  the  warm  creakings  of  his  saddle  under  him,  the 
thoughts  of  Ann  rode  with  him.  They  were  pleasant 
thoughts,  yet,  partly  because  they  puzzled  him, 
they  disturbed  him.  As  she  upon  her  part  had 
visualized  him,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  library  at 
Redmayne,  so  he,  in  turn,  visualized  her.  What  was 
it  in  her  face  that  seemed  to  speak  when  the  lips, 
perhaps,  were  silent,  —  that,  when  she  was  speak- 
ing, seemed  to  speak  irrelevantly  of  anything  that 
the  voice  might  say?  What  was  that  which  looked 
at  him  through,  or  from  behind,  the  calmness  of  the 
eyes?  The  calmness  was  unfaltering.  Ann  had  not 
deceived  herself  in  believing  that  she  had  masked  her 
feelings.  She  had  masked  them  completely.  Some- 
thing may  be  supposed  to  have  penetrated  through 
the  substance  and  complexion  of  her  mask,  but  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  Timothy  Coram,  though  he  was  dis- 
turbed a  little  himself,  had  not  an  inkling,  not  the 
ghost  nor  shadow  of  an  inkling,  of  her  disturbance. 
What  was  it,  he  asked  himself,  then,  that  brought 
her  before  him?  He  could  only  think  that  it  was  the 
knowledge  that  he  was  so  soon  to  leave  her.  Yes;  it 
was  of  a  part  with  that  anticipated  nostalgia  which 


82  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

he  had  spoken  of  to  her  in  connection  with  his  little 
house  —  the  very  stones  and  beams  of  it.  Only  thus 
could  he  account  for  what  would  else  have  seemed 
unaccountable. 

He  saw  her  in  her  silks  and  laces  —  the  strange 
clothes  that  did  not  look  strange  to  any  one  in  those 
days.  Such  femininity  of  clothes!  —  clothes  more 
feminine  surely  than  any  that  women  have  worn 
since.  He  saw  her  in  the  cool  brown  hollands,  and 
the  striped  or  sprigged  cottons  that  she  wore  in  the 
summer  mornings.  He  saw  her  in  garden  hats.  He 
saw  belts  that  she  wore  —  one  notably,  from  which 
hung  a  'chatelaine'  which  clicked  and  jingled  when 
she  moved.  The  soft  jingling  had  often  heralded  her 
approach  along  the  passage  to  the  library  where  he 
waited  for  her.  He  would  hear  it,  jingle,  jingle,  click, 
click,  and  the  door  would  open  and  she  would  ad- 
vance to  him  with  her  gracious  smile. 

He  saw  her  in  winter  things — furs;  the  short 
sealskin  coat  of  the  period.  Saw  her  against  a  back- 
ground of  snow  in  the  park,  her  hands  in  her  muff 
(which  was  very  small) ;  scarlet  berries  in  her  hat. 
He  saw  her  driving  her  own  ponies  —  a  little  parasol 
in  the  handle  of  the  whip.  He  saw  her  in  the  big  car- 
riages in  which  she  looked  so  regal.  He  saw  her  in 
church  —  her  prayer-books  bound  in  ivory;  book- 
markers of  ribbon,  which  ended  in  little  ivory  bars* 
or  crosses,  depending  from  them.  The  little  bars 
and  crosses  clicked,  as  the  chatelaine  with  clickings 
jingled. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  83 

He  saw  her  in  many  guises  and  aspects,  and  in  all 
of  them  she  was  charming.  She  was  so  'unmistak- 
able* (as  the  phrase  went  then)  —  so  unassailably 
well-bred.  And  —  but  was  it  only  now  that  he  was 
discovering  this?  —  she  was  so  very  pretty.  And,  in 
spite  of  her  dignity  and  her  suaveness  and  her  au- 
thority, so  young.  He  had  only  lately  seen  her  as 
young.  Was  she  younger  than  she  had  been?  Had 
she  —  some  time  in  the  last  few  weeks  —  even  grown 
younger? 

Puzzlement,  it  will  be  manifest,  for  Timothy 
Coram,  who,  his  successes  —  his  bonnes  fortunes  — 
notwithstanding,  remained  a  very  boy.  He  was, 
though  he  only  half  knew  it,  of  the  kind  which  expe- 
rience does  not  teach  ...  Or  perhaps  it  was  not  so 
much  experience  that  he  had  —  that  came  his  way 

—  as  experiences :  a  very  different  thing.    Be  this 
as  it  may,  he  certainly  did  remain  inexperienced. 
Though  he  should  have  Don  Juan's  own  adventures 
he  would  die  inexperienced  —  if  he  should  live  to  be 
ninety.    In  other  words,  he  was,  in  a  way,  as  inno- 
cent as  the  innocent  Ann  herself. 

So,  puzzled  and  puzzling,  he  rode  through  the 
green  lanes  and  the  sleepy  summer  afternoon.  The 
stillness  of  summer  had  settled  now  on  the  land. 
The  birds  had  nested  and  ceased  their  love-songs 

—  the  purpose  of  their  love-songs  accomplished. 
No  need  to  sing  when  love's  work  is  done.    Do  not 
even  human  beings  as  much  —  or,  shall  we  say,  as 
little?  —  the  female  human  being,  anyway?    Celia 


84  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

married  —  is  it  not  common  plaint?  —  gives  up  her 
music!  In  the  bird  world,  then,  only  at  the  beginning 
and  the  close  of  day  were  the  songs  heard  now.  No 
cuckoo's  note  to  lead  pilgrims  to  the  heart  of  the 
wood.  Who  went  to  the  shrine  of  the  waiting  youth 
must  find  it  for  himself. 

Timothy  Coram,  choosing  the  lanes  rather  than 
the  dusty  highroad,  approached  Redmayne  from  the 
side  of  the  wood.  To  him  the  clearing  was  not  a 
hidden  place  as  it  was  to  Ann.  He  had  always  known 
it.  Was  there  an  inch  of  Redmayne  that  he  did  not 
know?  But  he  had  never  realized  it.  It  made  no  ap- 
peal to  him.  It  was  just  a  clearing  in  the  wood.  The 
statue,  just  a  statue.  A  forgotten  statue,  moreover. 
If  he  had  ever  thought  about  the  statue  at  all,  it  was 
to  wonder  why  it  was  still  there  —  why  it  had  not 
been  swept  away  long  ago.  He  took  it  for  granted 
and  just  did  not  think  about  it.  Woods  were  n't  for 
statues.  Woods  were  for  game. 

He  entered  the  wood  by  the  bridle  path  which  Ann 
had  come  across  in  her  wanderings.  No ;  to  him  not 
an  enchanted  spot,  though,  indeed,  he  loved  it.  No 
mystery  in  it  or  in  the  long  aisles  which  cut  it  into 
unequal  sections.  For  him  just  a  wood  —  which  you 
could  see  in  spite  of  the  trees!  —  and  ways  through  it 
which  you  could  take  on  horseback  at  the  trouble  of 
an  occasional  stooping  of  the  head,  or  a  holding-back 
of  the  leafy  branches  which  yet  swished  about  your 
shoulders  and  ears  as  you  made  your  jogging  prog- 
ress. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  85 

The  branches  had  grown  since  last  he  had  used 
this  path.  He  seldom  used  it.  No  one  else,  he  sup- 
posed, used  it  at  all.  But  it  should  be  usable.  He 
must  put  a  man  or  two  to  work  on  it.  There  was 
always  some  one  for  whom  a  job  had  to  be  found 
or  devised.  Here,  then,  overhead,  were  loppings  to 
be  done,  thinnings;  below,  tidyings,  sweepings.  The 
jungle,  as  we  should  say  now,  had  been  let  in  and 
must  be  thrust  back,  kept  at  bay. 

Presently  he  was  conscious  of  something  discord- 
ant, something  out  of  tune,  that  is,  with  the  pleasant 
influences  of  the  place  and  the  hour.  He  drew  rein 
and  listened.  The  sounds  came  from  the  thick  of 
the  wood  to  his  right;  harsh  cries  of  pain  and  terror 
with  beatings  and  flappings  of  frenzied  wings. 

He  dismounted  and  tethered  his  horse  to  a  tree. 
He  pushed  his  way  through  the  undergrowth  in  the 
direction  whence  the  sounds  came  to  him.  They 
ceased  and  were  renewed,  then  ceased  again,  and 
then,  as  the  noises  that  his  own  movements  made,  — 
snappings  of  twigs,  crashing  of  little  branches,  and 
rustlings  of  disturbed  leaves,  —  preceded  him,  were 
renewed  more  fiercely. 

The  bird,  a  magpie,  was  caught  by  the  wing  in  a 
thicket,  as  Abraham's  ram  by  the  horn.  The  thicket 
was  one  of  those  which  choked  the  alleys  in  the 
mouths  of  which  stood  the  terminals  facing  then  the 
statue.  Between  him  and  the  back  of  the  satyr's 
head  which  was  towards  him  he  saw  a  sort  of  scream*- 


86  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

ing  welter  of  black  and  white  which  he  could  not 
reach.  He  was  looking  into  the  alley  from  the 
blocked  end  of  it,  and  to  get  at  what  it  held  captive 
he  must  approach  and  enter  it  from  the  other  side. 
He  retraced  his  steps  for  a  few  yards,  bore  to  the  left, 
and  entered  the  clearing  at  the  spot  at  which  Ann 
had  entered  it.  The  swaying  briar  was  there  still,  or 
the  briar  rather  which  had  swayed,  for  it  swayed  no 
longer  and  was  now  the  core  of  a  rope  of  growing 
things  stretching  across  from  one  tangle  to  another. 
He  dealt  with  it  summarily  with  his  foot.  But  in 
any  case  it  would  have  held  no  symbolism  for  him. 

Thus  he  entered  the  circle  —  led  thither,  after 
all,  like  Ann,  though  all  so  differently,  by  the  cry  of 
a  bird ! 

He  passed  the  smiling  satyr.  The  accident  which 
had  made  the  bird  captive  could  not  long  have  hap- 
pened when  he  had  heard  the  creature's  cries,  for, 
though  the  bushes  were  pied  with  its  feathers,  it  had 
still  the  strength  to  struggle  violently.  Fight  as  well 
as  fear  was  in  its  shining  eyes  as  he  came  near.  It 
flapped  vehemently,  pecking  viciously  at  his  hands 
with  its  open  beak. 

"Now  —  now  —  now,"  he  said. 

But  though  it  was  at  bay  it  meant  battle,  and  to 
reason  with  it  availed  nothing.  It  spread  the  wing 
that  was  free,  the  pin-feathers  standing  out  sepa- 
rately. So  angry  it  was  and  so  frightened  —  so  angry 
because  so  frightened.  It  struggled  upward  desper- 
ately, only  to  subside  into  a  huddled  yet  spread 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  87 

mass  of  black  and  white,  from  which  its  open  beak 
projected  menacingly.  All  that  was  unconquered  in  it 
was  concentrated  in  eyes  and  beak  —  remained  con- 
centrated in  eyes  and  beak  as,  to  the  wild  thumping 
of  its  heart  against  them,  it  had  to  yield  to  the  ca- 
pable hands.  Very  firmly,  but  very  gently  also,  they 
folded  the  free  wing  and  imprisoned  the  throbbing 
body.  One  of  them  then,  the  body  held  by  the  other, 
dealt  with  the  member  which  was  caught.  The  wing 
was  tightly  wedged  between  two  strong  twigs  which 
pressed  the  one  against  the  other.  The  more  the 
creature  had  struggled,  the  more  tightly  had  the 
wing  become  wedged.  The  task  of  extricating  it  took 
some  difficult  but  very  patient  minutes. 

Then  it  was  that  the  odd  thing  happened.  So 
absorbed  had  he  been  in  his  work  of  rescue  that  the 
sounds  that  must  otherwise  have  apprised  him  of 
nearing  footsteps  had  not  penetrated  to  his  con- 
sciousness, and  it  was  not  till  he  stood  with  the  bird 
free  and  ready  for  release,  and  held  for  a  moment  to 
his  breast,  —  like  a  dove,  as  the  newcomer  thought, 
to  the  breast  of  a  mediaeval  saint,  —  that  he  be- 
came aware  that  he  was  not  alone.  It  was  the  Ann 
Forrester  who  had  so  persistently  been  with  him  on 
his  ride,  rather  than  the  Mrs.  Forrester  whom  he 
served,  who  now  stood  watching  him. 

He  held  out  the  bird  to  her. 

"A  trap?" 

He  shook  his  head. 


88  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Not  one  of  ours,"  he  said.  "Not  one  contrived 
by  man  at  all.  Nature  made  the  snare  that  caught 
this  little  beggar.  I  heard  him  as  I  was  riding  through 
the  wood." 

She  looked  from  him  to  the  bird.  It  was  not 
struggling  now.  Did  it  want  to  go?  She  may  have 
been  wondering  that.  Could  it?  She  looked  away 
frowning.  It  was  as  if  the  sight  hurt  her;  could  he 
have  explained  that  to  himself!  Could  one  subtler 
than  he  have  been  expected  even  to  guess  at  jealousy 
of  a  bird? 

But  "Let  it  go,"  she  said  quickly;  thickly. 

He  opened  his  hands.  For  one  moment,  almost 
as  if,  indeed,  it  did  not  want  to  leave  its  warm  prison, 
the  bird  did  not  move.  It  was  at  a  sudden  move- 
ment on  the  part,  not  of  the  man  who  held  it,  but  of 
the  woman  who  only  watched,  that  it  spread  its  wings 
with  a  sharp  cry  and  disappeared  over  the  trees. 

They  both  looked  after  it,  but  could  not  follow  its 
flight. 

The  silence  of  the  wood  descended  on  them. 

"This  strange  place,"  Ann  said  nervously.  "It  was 
only  lately  ..." 

She  broke  off.  He  looked  to  follow  the  direction 
of  her  eyes,  and  saw  that  one  of  his  hands  was  bleed- 
ing. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ANN  had  come  in  from  her  drive  restless  — 
driven !  —  a  perplexity  to  Claudia,  who  mercifully 
had  not  '  seen,'  and  who  had  thought  the  drive,  as, 
indeed,  she  said,  a  particularly  pleasant  one. 

"When  I  am  in  the  country  I  do  love  driving  into 
a  town." 

''Do  you?"  said  Ann;  but  added  warmly  that  she 
was  delighted  that  Claudia  had  enjoyed  herself. 

On  the  way  home  she  had  hardly  been  able  to  lis- 
ten to  what  Claudia  said.  She  had  had  to  be  on  her 
guard,  moreover,  or  she  must  have  answered  her  at 
random.  Her  unrest  had  been  cumulative.  By  the 
time  they  reached  the  house  Claudia  was  prepared 
for  some  sort  of  outbreak.  None  came,  but  Ann  — 
driven,  indeed  —  knew  that  her  own  safety  lay  in 
withdrawing  herself. 

Presently,  excusing  herself  she  knew  not  how,  and 
a  little  angry  that  she  should  have  felt  constrained 
to  excuse  herself,  she  slipped  away  from  the  drawing- 
room  —  leaving  her  guest  to  finish  her  tea  by  her- 
self, and  leaving  her,  she  knew,  to  wonder  about  her. 
She  had  not  taken  off  her  things  and  by  that  she 
knew  that  she  meant  to  go  out.  Claudia  would 
know  it,  too.  Well,"  what  matter?  What  matter 
what  Claudia  knew  or  did  not  know,  thought  or  did 


90  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

not  think?  Claudia,  of  course,  was  a  dear;  was  her 
greatest  friend ;  was  a  real  friend.  She  cared  for  her 
truly  —  loved  her,  indeed.  It  was  only  that  at  the 
moment,  at  the  mercy  as  before  of  her  own  nerves, 
she  felt  that  her  observant  presence  was  an  embar- 
rassment. 

Presently  she  was  in  the  garden  —  presently  flit- 
ting from  the  garden.  In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  she 
was  in  the  wood.  Then  she  knew. 

Only  the  statue  could  help  her  —  the  waiting 
youth  in  his  hidden  shrine.  For  his  very,  silence  he 
would  help  her.  She  would  tell  him,  though  in  tell- 
ing him  she  would  be  telling  not  him  at  all,  but  that 
other  whose  burning  had  expressed  itself  in  the  cold 
beauty  of  the  chiselled  stone.  No,  not  cold.  Even 
now  she  could  feel  the  cheek  of  the  statue  warm 
against  her  own.  She  quickened  her  pace. 

The  wood  received  her.  The  cool  green  shade  of 
it  soothed  her.  Very  different  this  time  was  her 
progress  from  that  of  her  first  venture.  Then  she 
had  been  a  fine  lady  making  a  voyage  of  discovery 
impeded  by  her  instinctive  consciousness  of  her 
finery.  Actually,  perhaps,  she  was  not  less  '  fine '  now 
than  then,  but  then  her  steps  had  been  tentative, 
and  in  her  aspect  as  in  her  actions  the  furling  and 
unfurling  of  her  parasol  had  had  a  part  which  was 
significant  of  her  whole  attitude  towards  life.  Now, 
though  she  carried  a  parasol,  it  was  from  habit  only, 
and  she  made  no  attempt  to  use  it.  It  fell  into  its 
place  as  a  wholly  unimportant  —  superfluous,  even 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  91 

—  adjunct  to  her  equipment.  She  was  intent  on 
her  purpose.  As  she  entered  the  wood  she  had 
gathered  her  skirts  about  her  high  above  the  white 
petticoat,  and  thereafter  gave  them  no  thought. 

She  found  the  bridle  path  which  led  to  the  circle. 
Long  before  she  could  see  to  the  end  of  it,  she  saw, 
as  clearly  as  if  her  eyes  were  already  upon  it,  the 
white  figure  looking  down  the  long  aisle.  Waiting. 
Waiting.  Always  waiting.  But  it  was  the  waiting  of 
expectation  not  of  hope  merely  —  the  waiting  of  one 
who  knows  that  what  he  wants  will  come.  Endur- 
able such  a  waiting  as  that.  Happy  even.  Had  the 
unknown  sculptor  known  it?  Did  she  know  it?  Was 
it  because  he  had  not  known  it  that  he  had  ex- 
pressed what  he  did  not  know,  what  he  was  never 
to  know,  in  the  enduring  loveliness  of  his  creation? 
Was  that  why  he  would  understand  when  she  should 
tell  him  —  when  it  was  to  him  that  she  would  be 
speaking,  though  her  words,  if  she  found  any,  would 
be  addressed  to  the  work  of  his  hands? 

To  her  also  came  the  sound  of  the  bird's  cries. 
They  did  not  interpret  themselves  to  her  as  they 
did  to  the  other  who  heard  them,  for  to  her  the  cry 
of  snared  things  in  fur  or  feather  was  not  familiar. 
For  her  as  for  him,  however,  the  sounds  were  a  jar- 
ring note.  In  the  brooding  peacefulness  of  the  wood 
they  spoke  of  pain  and  panic.  They  ceased;  were 
renewed;  ceased.  Then  another  sound  smote  her 
ear.  The  soft  whinnying  of  a  horse.  This  startled 


92  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

her.  A  horse  here  must  have  a  rider.  She  had 
thought  the  wood  empty  from  end  to  end.  Who 
shared  its  solitudes  with  her? 

She  was  approaching  the  circle.  Now,  indeed,  she 
could  see  the  waiting  boy.  He  leaned  towards  her. 
Something  oddly  appealing  in  the  tilt  of  his  body. 
It  was  for  every  one  who  might  come  down  the  long 
aisle,  but  for  each  one  it  was  individual,  selective 
even.  Ann  in  her  need  was  beset  by  no  doubts.  It 
was  for  her.  As  she  looked  she  knew  that  she  would 
find  words. 

And  then  she  became  aware  of  another  presence. 
The  colour  rose  in  a  sudden  wave  to  her  face  as  she 
recognized  the  back  that  was  towards  her.  The  tide 
ebbed  as  quickly  as  it  had  risen  and  may  for  a  mo- 
ment or  two  have  left  her  very  white.  But  she  had 
time  to  recover  herself,  for,  we  know,  it  was  not  till 
he  had  turned  that  he  saw  her. 

The  few  words  that  we  have  heard  passed  between 
them.  Her  emotions  were  conflicting  indeed.  The 
joy  that  the  sight  of  him  gave  her  was  always  in- 
separable now  from  pain,  and  the  sight  of  the  bird 
in  his  arms  was  more,  almost,  than  she  could  bear. 
His  tenderness  towards  it,  the  contrast  of  his 
strength  with  its  weakness,  the  way  that  the  strong 
hands  enfolded  it,  something  even  in  its  quiescence 
under  their  sheltering  pressure  forced  from  her  the 
"Let  it  go!"  which  was  spoken  almost  against  her 
will.  When  he  opened  his  hands  and  it  still  did 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  93 

not  move,  her  own  rustling  movement  was  entirely 
involuntary.  She  might  be  said  to  have  breathed 
again  when  the  bird  rose  with  its  cry.  It  was  as  if 
she  too  had  been  freed  .  .  . 

Now  the  wood  seemed,  indeed,  to  hold  him  and 
her  only.  Could  it  be  for  nothing  that  it  was  in  this 
place  of  all  places  that  they  should  meet?  The  silence, 
like  the  surrounding  trees,  isolated  them  together. 
Did  he  come  here  knowing  its  strange  influences? 
Only  strange  things  could  happen  here.  Anything 
that  happened  here  would  be  strange  —  different 
from  anything  that  might  happen  elsewhere.  She 
was  impelled  to  break  the  silence,  though  she  prized 
it.  She  said,  "This  strange  place,"  as  we  have  heard; 
and  then,  just  as  she  had  seen  drops  of  blood  upon 
her  own  hand  on  that  strangest  day  of  all  her  life, 
she  saw  drops  of  blood  on  his.  It  was  as  if,  asking 
a  sign,  or,  at  least,  ardently  desiring  a  sign,  a  sign 
had  miraculously  been  vouchsafed  to  her.  Open  to 
us,  later,  to  remember  or  not  as  we  choose  how  gen- 
erations (opposed,  let  us  hope,  to  individuals!)  have 
been  characterized  when  they  in  their  time  have 
sought  after  a  sign!  Ann,  however,  did  not,  per- 
haps, so  much  seek  after  a  sign  as  recognize  one. 
We,  beginning  to  know  Timothy,  shall  at  least  be 
reminded  here  of  his  attitude  towards  love ! 

A  strange  moment  followed  —  for  him  astray, 
perplexed ;  for  her  (unaccountably,  surely?)  exultant. 

Then  Ann  remembered  that  the  bird  had  been 
a  magpie. 


94  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Coram  wiped  the  blood  from  his  hand,  looking 
his  bewilderment.  Not  so  distant  yet  the  days 
when  ladies  had  fainted  at  the  sight  of  blood.  He 
would  have  understood  if  what  she  had  shown  had 
been  dismay.  It  was  nothing  of  the  sort. 

But  she  was  speaking. 

"I  wish  it  had  n't  been  a  magpie." 

He  closed  eagerly  on  what  he  did  understand. 
Ladies  were  superstitious. 

'"One  for  .  .  .' ?  Oh,  but  I'll  show  you  others," 
he  said,  smiling.  "There  are  scores  this  year.  The 
wood  is  full  of  them." 

He  was  n't  telling  her  that  they  —  he  and  she  — 
were  not  out  of  the  wood  yet !  He  was  not  capable, 
as  she  would  have  known  if  she  had  thought  about 
it,  of  such  a  flight  as  that.  At  any  other  moment  she 
might  have  felt  this  to  be  disappointing.  But  she 
was  occupied  now  with  the  emotions  which  had  al- 
ready been  roused. 

"You  shall  have  your  'Two  for  mirth,' "  he  prom- 
ised her. 

"It's  all  I  ask,"  she  said,  smiling  in  turn.  But 
that  was  n't  all  that  she  asked  now  and  she  knew 
it. 

Silence  fell  again  between  them.  A  big  yellow 
butterfly  came  flapping  over  the  trees.  It  alighted 
upon  the  head  of  one  of  the  smiling  satyrs  and  after 
a  moment  or  two,  as  if  unsatisfied  there,  fluttered 
over  to  the  statue.  On  the  sun-warmed  surface  of 
one  of  the  resting  arms,  it  spread  its  wings  wide. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  95 

Ann  sat  down  on  the  stone  seat.  Timothy  Coram 
had  tied  his  handkerchief  round  his  hand  that  the 
minute  drops  of  blood,  which  (like  her  own)  had 
formed  and  re-formed,  might  be  covered. 

"How  ungrateful  of  the  little  wretch! "  Ann  said, 
—  "how  ungrateful  to  wound  the  hand  that  suc- 
coured him!" 

But  she  looked  pleased. 

"Nothing  but  fright,"  said  Coram. 

"I  didn't  say  I  didn't  understand,"  Ann  said, 
still  with  the  same  look  of  contentment. 

The  butterfly  shut  and  opened  his  wings,  turning 
this  way  and  that  in  the  sun,  and  then  again  spread 
them  close,  close  to  the  warm  stone. 

"Why  have  I  only  just  discovered  this  place?" 
she  said  then.  "Why  did  n't  any  one  tell  me  of  it? 
Why  did  n't  you?"  " 

"Did  n't  you  know  of  it?" 

"Of  course  I've  known  of  it.  But  why  have  n't 
I  ever  seen  it?  been  made  to  see  it?  It  only  needed 
to  be  seen.  This  is  just  the  second  time  that  I  have 
seen  it  and  it  has  been  here  always." 

He  looked  from  her  to  the  statue  and  then  round 
the  clearing  itself,  his  eyes  pausing  at  each  of  the 
three  smiling  satyrs. 

"One goes  abroad  to  see  places  like  this,"  she  said. 

She  was  falling  again  under  the  spell.  Her  eyelids 
felt  heavy.  The  butterfly  was  quite  still  now,  giving 
itself  luxuriously  to  the  sun  and  the  warm  stone. 
There  was  a  drowsy  hum  of  insects.  A  bumble-bee, 


96  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

half  drunk  with  honey  or  weighted  with  his  load, 
blundered  out  of  a  foxglove  on  to  the  seat  beside 
her  and  rolled  over  before  he  found  his  wings.  Gentle 
lapping  influences  were  here. 

"Look!"  Coram  cried  suddenly  as  one  who  cries 
"Mark!"  and  Ann,  following  the  indication  of  his 
turning  head,  was  in  time  to  catch  a  momentary 
glimpse  of  black-and-white  wings. 

Yet  it  was  at  this  moment  that  Ann,  happy  in 
what  the  day,  nothing-promising,  had  given  her,  had 
her  presentiment  that  mirth  was  the  last  thing 
she  could  —  or  would,  perhaps,  even  if  she  could! 
—  hope  to  have  reason  to  express.  Love  would  never 
be  to  her  a  laughing  matter.  Light  love  was  nothing 
to  her;  was  not  love;  did  not  exist  for  her.  She  had 
a  sudden  deadly  misgiving  that  love  was  torment, 
the  surrender  of  your  peace  of  mind  .  .  . 

The  moment  passed.  The  butterfly  closed  its 
wings  and  opened  them  again  to  the  sun.  A  second 
butterfly  entered  the  circle.  The  first  left  the  warm 
stone.  The  two  chased  each  other  sporting  in  the 
air.  The  influences  of  the  spot,  lulling,  deceiving 
even,  reestablished  themselves. 

And  to  Ann  it  seemed  that  the  spell  communi- 
cated itself  to  him  also.  He  came  over  and  sat  down 
on  the  moss  at  her  feet,  and,  though  they  talked  o* 
nothing  intimate,  she  felt  that  a  change  had  come 
over  their  relations.  He  saw,  moreover,  the  beauty 
of  the  statue.  She  could  have  told  almost  the  exact 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  97 

moment  at  which  its  beauty  revealed  itself  to  him, 
though  he  did  not  at  once  speak  of  it.  He  had  seen 
this  statue  a  hundred  times,  she  knew,  without 
seeing  it  at  all  —  seen  it  with  holden  eyes.  Now 
he  saw  it.  She  watched  its  effect  upon  him;  liked 
to  watch  it.  She  was  very  glad  that  he  had  chosen 
the  ground  rather  than  the  seat,  for,  thus,  she  need 
keep  no  guard  over  her  own  eyes.  He  had  taken  off 
his  hat.  His  hair  was  thick  as  the  hair  of  a  boy. 

"One  could  swear  he  was  going  to  speak,"  he  said 
out  of  one  of  the  unstrained  silences.  The  easiness 
of  the  silences  here  in  the  humming  silence  of  the 
wood  was  itself  notable  —  a  source  of  unconsidered 
happiness  to  Ann.  Neither  felt  constrained  to  break 
the  silences  when  the  silences  fell. 

"I  think  he  does  speak,"  Ann  said. 

"  Do  you  know  what  he  says?" 

"  I  think  I  could  hear.  I  think  I  came  here  now  to 
try  to  hear." 

"Then  I  ..." 

"No,"  Ann  said. 

In  spite  of  her  her  eyes  filled  with  tears.  He  was  so 
near  to  her.  She  could  have  touched  his  hair. 

Presently  Ann  rose. 
"I  must  go,"  she  said. 
Timothy  Coram  rose  also. 

They  went  and  stood  before  the  statue.  Their 
joint  action  was  in  some  sort  a  leave-taking. 


98  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"If  he  could  speak!"  Ann  said.  "He  waits  here 
day  and  night  in  the  loneliness  and  the  silence.  Where 
does  he  come  from?  Where  did  he  wait  before  he 
waited  here?  Since  I  first  saw  him  I  have  waked  in 
the  night  sometimes  and  thought  of  him  sitting  here 
looking  down  the  long  path  ..." 

Coram  looked  from  the  statue  to  her.  New 
thoughts  seemed  to  be  moving  in  his  mind. 

"Night  would  be  the  time  to  see  him,"  he  said. 
"He  is  stained  and  weather-beaten.  He  wouldn't 
be  then.  When  the  moon 's  up  he  would  be  as  white 
as  the  marble  he  was  hewn  out  of." 

Lyrical  for  Timothy  Coram!  Assuredly  he  was 
under  the  spell.  But  Ann  did  not  think  of  that  now. 
It  seemed  natural  that  he  should  have  such  thoughts, 
use  such  words  to  express  them.  When  she  saw  him 
pluck  a  leaf  —  sweet-briar  —  and  lay  it  at  the  boy's 
feet,  that  seemed  natural  also. 

They  stood  for  a  moment  or  two  in  silence.  Then 
the  horse  whinnied  again. 

Presently  they  were  walking  down  one  of  the  long 
paths,  he,  ahead,  leading  his  horse,  she  following, 
her  eyes  upon  his  back.  He  would  not  ride.  There 
was  not  room  for  three,  man,  woman,  and  horse, 
to  walk  abreast.  From  time  to  time  he  turned  to 

speak. 

* 

The  twigs  snapped  under  their  feet.  The  leaves 
swished.  Grasses  bent  and  quickly  or  slowly  righted 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  99 

themselves.  Long  after  the  little  procession  had 
passed,  there  would  be  minute  rustlings  amid  the 
displaced  growing  things  as  they  straightened  or 
disentangled  themselves.  Some  would  never  be 
straightened  at  all  nor  released. 

A  pheasant  crowed  and  she  heard  a  rush  of  wings. 
Ann  saw  a  squirrel  looping  to  a  tree.  At  one  point 
a  scent  which  she  did  not  recognize  was  the  scent  of 
a  fox.  It  had  its  part  in  making  the  life  of  the  fields 
and  the  woods  seem  very  near,  but  very  cautious, 
very  shy.  What  did  she  want?  The  Garden  of 
Eden?  The  lion  lying  down  with  the  lamb?  Condi- 
tions in  which  the  wild  things  should  seek  no  covert 
at  your  approach,  trust  you  because  you  were  one 
with  them,  come  to  you? 

They  emerged  from  the  wood.  After  its  soft  green 
twilight  the  open  light  of  the  unshaded  fields  was 
dazzling.  Ann  blinked  her  eyes,  as  the  pantomime 
fairies  of  one's  youth  blinked  theirs  when,  from  the 
darkness  under  the  stage,  they  came  up  through  a 
trap  into  the  glare  of  the  footlights.  She  had  not  ac- 
customed her  eyes  to  the  unshaded  brightness  when 
Timothy  Coram  once  more,  and  as  suddenly  as  be- 
fore, cried,  "Look!" 

Two  magpies  had  broken  simultaneously  from  a 
hedge.  For  a  single  moment  at  the  angle  at  which 
Ann  saw  them  one  partially  obscured  the  other,  so 
that,  to  her  eyes,  already  confused  by  the  sun,  the 
black-and-white  flappings  seemed  those  of  one  bird. 
The  illusion  lasted  veritably  but  for  a  heart's  beat 


ioo  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

or  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  though  in  that  space  she 
had  had  time  for  a  ridiculous  inward  'That's  three!' 
Then  the  angle  changed,  and  immediately  what  had 
seemed  one  bird  showed  itself  to  be  two. 

Thus,  the  day's  harvest  was  four. 

Ann  laughed. 

"You  were  right,"  she  said;  "I  needn't  have 
been  afraid  that  I  should  be  left  with  my  'One  for 
Sorrow.1 " 

But  what  she  did  not  notice  was  that,  in  the  odd 
way  in  which  the  thing  had  happened,  the '  Four '  she 
was  ultimately  left  with  had  seemed,  as  it  revealed 
itself,  to  wipe  out  altogether  the  'Three*  upon  which 
she  had  closed. 


CHAPTER  IX 

TIMOTHY  came  with  Ann  as  far  as  the  gate  of  the 
lower  garden,  where  Claudia,  from  the  window  of 
the  boudoir,  to  which  idleness  had  brought  her,  saw 
him  take  leave  of  her,  mount  his  horse,  and  ride 
away.  She  smiled  to  herself,  and  withdrew  a  little 
into  the  shelter  of  one  of  the  curtains.  Ann  was  com- 
ing slowly  towards  the  house.  She  did  not  look  back. 
Timothy  Coram  did.  He  turned  in  his  saddle  and 
followed  Ann's  retreating  form,  Claudia  observed, 
till  it  was  out  of  the  range  of  his  eyes.  It  was  then 
that  Claudia  jumped  to  her  conclusion  —  to  the  con- 
clusion which  indirectly,  or  perhaps  even  directly, 
was  to  have  such  momentous  results. 

Claudia  could  be  as  quick  in  her  movements  as 
in  her  conjectures.  She  was  sitting  in  the  distant 
library,  a  book  —  "Red  as  a  Rose  is  She"  —  in  her 
hands,  when,  a  minute  or  two  later,  her  hostess, 
having  drawn  the  boudoir  and  the  drawing-rooms 
blank,  came  there  to  look  for  her. 

"Oh,  here  you  are,"  Ann  said. 

Claudia  nodded  gaily. 

"Here  I  am,"  she  answered,  waiting,  content  to 
wait,  for  what  Ann  should  say  next. 

Ann  came  across  to  her  and  leaning  over  her  chair 
laid  her  cheek  for  a  moment  against  hers.  Claudia 
in  contact  with  her  knew  at  once  that  the  restlessness 


102  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

which  had  possessed  her  an  hour  or  two  earlier  was 
past.  She  saw  also  that  a  calmed  and  softened  Ann 
wanted  to  make  amends. 

"Dear  Ann,"  she  murmured  gently. 

"Was  I  horrid  just  now?"  Ann  said.  "I  don't 
know  what  was  the  matter  with  me." 

Claudia  thought  to  herself  that  she,  then,  knew 
very  well  indeed.  But  before  she  had  time  or  need  to 
speak,  Ann,  bending  nearer  before  withdrawing  her 
face,  had  added:  "You'll  make  allowances  for  me, 
I  know.  Perhaps  some  time  I  shall  tell  you." 

"Whenever  you  feel  that  you  want  to  tell  me," 
Claudia  said  —  "if  you  ever  feel  that  you  want  to 
tell  me  .  .  ." 

"I  think  I  shall  want  to  tell  you." 

Claudia  pressed  the  hand  which  still  held  one  of 
hers. 

"Dear  Ann,"  she  said  again.  But  as  she  became 
aware  at  the  same  moment  that  the  book  she  was 
holding  was  upside  down,  she  floundered  a  little  over 
the  "But  on  no  account  unless  you  do  feel  that  you 
want  to  tell  me,"  which  she  had  intended  should  be 
so  disarming  in  its  ingenuous  fervency. 

She  stole  a  glance  at  Ann  to  see  if  she  had  ob- 
served. Ann's  eyes,  however,  were  elsewhere,  and 
Claudia  closed  her  book  and  put  it  down. 

The  moment  passed  like  the  others.   Ann  did  nott 
speak.    But  clearly  something  had  happened.    Had 
she  gone  out  to  meet  the  handsome  agent?  Claudia, 
though  she  had  not  seen  the  bather,  did  not  think 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  103 

so.  The  meeting  she  fancied  had  been  fortuitous, 
but  whatever  its  nature,  whatever  the  circumstances 
attending  it,  its  effect  upon  Ann  was  palpable.  It 
was  as  if  something  had  been  lifted,  or  as  if  some- 
thing which  would  not  suffer  her  to  rest  had  been 
removed.  All  her  gracious  serenity  had  returned  to 
her. 

"  Come  into  the  garden  for  a  few  minutes  before 
we  go  up  to  dress.  It  is  wrong  to  be  indoors." 

Claudia  rose  at  once  and  with  linked  arms  the  two 
ladies  went  out  into  the  garden.  The  sun  was  lower 
in  the  heavens  now,  but  his  radiance  was  undimin- 
ished.  The  air  was  a-hum  with  wings,  and  honey- 
sweet  with  the  scent  of  flowers.  Gardeners  were 
busy  watering.  A  long  hose,  supported  at  intervals 
on  little  pairs  of  wheels,  which  gave  it  an  air  of  hav- 
ing legs,  lay  like  some  monstrous  reptile  upon  the 
smooth  green  turf  of  a  lawn.  When  from  time  to 
time,  as  the  gardeners  gave  it  a  tug,  it  moved  its 
sinuous  length  across  the  grass,  the  illusion  of  life 
was  heightened.  Claudia,  despite  her  preoccupation 
with  the  emotions  and  affairs  of  Ann,  watched  it, 
fascinated. 

"Isn't  it  like  something  before  the  flood  — the 
monsters  you  see  pictures  of  in  the  magazines !  Do 
look,  Ann!  It's  running.  It  does  n't  really  like  run- 
ning, because,  though  it  has  legs,  it  is  cursed  like 
the  serpent  in  Genesis  and  its  belly  cleaves  to  the 
dust.  Oh,  Ann,  is  n't  it  ridiculous  when  it  runs!" 

But  it  was  Claudia  who  was  ridiculous,  and  Ann 


104  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

loved  her.  She  began  to  know  certainly  that  she 
should  tell  her.  She  wanted  to  tell  her  now.  She 
wanted  to  say:  "Claudia,  I've  seen  him.  I've 
seen  him.  I  've  been  with  him.  I  Ve  been  with  him 
in  the  wood.  I've  been  with  him  in  a  wonderful 
place.  I  've  made  him  see  beauty.  He  saw  it  through 
me.  But  for  me  he  would  have  missed  it  as  he  has 
missed  it  a  hundred  times  before.  But  now  he  sees 
and  he  always  will  see.  His  eyes  are  opening, 
Claudia  ..." 

And  then,  as  she  thought  back  to  what  she  herself 
had  seen:  "And  he  is  sheer  beauty  himself  ..." 

At  that  she  paused,  knowing  what  she  knew  — 
knowing  that  she  knew  more  than  Claudia  — 
Claudia  who  had  said  that  no  one  ought  to  be  so 
good-looking!  Ah,  she  knew  more  than  Claudia.  And 
then,  because  she  knew  him  to  be  beautiful,  she 
felt  the  colour  deepen  in  her  cheeks.  Yet  why?  Why 
should  she  not  think  of  that  as  beautiful  which  was 
beautiful?  Why  not,  if  she  wished,  even  speak  of  it 
in  words?  What  was  this  fear  of  the  body  which 
(then,  at  any  rate)  stultified  the  meaning  and  pur- 
pose of  life?  What  was  the  purpose  of  beauty  if 
not  that  it  should  be  desired?  Why  had  the  very 
flowers  scents,  colours?  There  was  nothing  to  be 
ashamed  of.  She  was  not  ashamed.  Nor  was  this 
shame  that  she  was  feeling.  It  was  gladness,  exulta- 
tion. And  so,  though  she  did  not  know  it,  another 
stage  was  reached. 

She  pressed  Claudia's  arm  and  knew,  or  half  knew, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  105 

that  it  was  for  love  of  Coram  that  she  made  this 
movement  of  affection  towards  Claudia.  How  strange 
it  was!  How  strange  were  all  her  emotions!  How 
changed  she  was  from  the  Ann  Forrester  who  had  sat 
waiting  for  the  carriage  and  had  heard  the  cuckoo's 
note!  .  .  . 

And  she  knew  that  Claudia,  though  she  was  not 
watching  her,  observed  her.  This  did  not  annoy  her 
or  even  disturb  her.  It  gave  her  rather  a  sense  of 
well-being.  Claudia  was  there,  interested,  benefi- 
cent, responsive. 

In  the  rose  garden  every  rose  was  a  censer  sending 
up  its  fragrance  as  incense  to  the  warmth  and  the 
light.  Here  were  great  red  or  white  or  pink  roses  in 
which,  drinking  in  their  fragrance,  you  could  bury 
your  face. 

Claudia  moved  about  amongst  them,  saying, 
"Look!"  and  "Look!"  and  "This  one!"  and  "Oh, 
this  one!*'  She  made  it  plain,  now,  that  she  would 
make  no  attempt  to  force  her  friend's  hand.  Ann, 
therefore,  wished  to  tell  her.  The  one  restraint 
upon  her  was  the  thought  of  the  next  evening  when 
Coram  was  coming  to  dinner.  The  day  passed 
without  her  telling  her.  Claudia's  face,  like  Ann's, 
was  set  towards  the  next  evening. 


CHAPTER  X 

ANN  had  a  dress  which  she  had  never  worn. 

The  last  year  of  Mr.  Forrester's  life  had  seen 
him  the  prey  to  strange  moods.  He  was  variable, 
uncertain,  the  victim  of  his  nerves.  He  knew  that 
he  was  doomed  and  that  protest  was  vain.  He  had 
lived  his  life  and  was  not  dissatisfied,  on  the  whole, 
with  what  life  had  given  him.  The  bill  had  come  in 
and  he  was  prepared  to  meet  it.  But  there  were 
days  when  even  to  him  the  price  seemed  too  high. 
Winton,  his  man,  could  have  told.  Ann,  always  a 
little  outside  her  husband's  life,  though  she  hardly 
realized  this,  knew,  rather  through  Winton  than 
through  her  husband  himself,  when  the  stress  had 
been  greatest.  Winton  adored  his  master  and  said 
nothing.  But  from  time  to  time  a  day  would  come 
when  she,  too,  had  to  bear  her  share,  when  the  irri- 
tation spread  past  servants  and  bath  attendants 
and  masseurs  to  her  also.  She,  to  her  credit,  like 
Winton  to  his,  understood.  She  would  have  under- 
stood better  if  she  had  been  allowed  nearer,  but  even 
as  things  were  she  understood.  Always  after  the 
outbreak  came  the  reaction.  The  overbearingnesses 
over,  there  were  tractabilities,  gentlenesses,  which 
made  up  to  Winton  for  everything,  tendernesses 
even.  To  Ann  there  were  attentions.  The  dress, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  107 

like  many  of  her  many  jewels  and  trinkets,  repre- 
sented such  an  attention. 

It  was  a  very  simple  dress,  quite  unlike  the  elabo- 
rate dresses  of  those  days.  Looking  for  something 
that  should  please  her,  he  had  found  it  himself,  and 
had  insisted  on  buying  it  for  her  in  the  face  of  Ann's 
argument  that  its  cost,  which  was  considerable,  was 
quite  disproportionate  to  the  use  which  the  nature 
of  its  fashioning  could  ever  allow  it  to  be  to  her.  It 
was  copied  from  some  mediaeval  Florentine  gar- 
ment, and  was  of  a  deep  sapphire  blue  —  the  colour 
of  a  dark  sea  or  distant  mountains.  It  was  woven 
throughout  of  silk,  which  was  designed,  not  so  much 
to  fit  closely  to  the  figure  as  to  follow  its  lines  truth- 
fully, and  the  only  ornament  which  it  boasted  was 
the  jewelled  girdle  which  fastened  it.  It  had  an  air, 
intentioned,  in  all  likelihood,  and  probably  entirely 
deceptive,  of  having  no  other  fastening.  This,  and 
the  condition  that  it  imposed  that  it  must  be  worn 
without  stays,  had  slightly  alarmed  Ann  —  of- 
fended her  even;  and  it  was,  perhaps,  the  perception 
of  the  real  cause  of  her  demurrings  that,  half  whim- 
sically, half  maliciously,  had  determined  her  husband 
to  buy  it  for  her.  She  had  pleaded  the  number  of 
her  dresses.  She  could  not  keep  pace  with  them  — 
could  not  wear  all  she  had  before  they  went  out  of 
fashion.  She  should  have  one  dress,  he  declared, 
which  would  never  be  out  of  fashion.  But,  going 
back  to  her  first  argument,  when  could  she  wear  it? 
—  not  dining  out,  not  at  a  party,  and  it  would  be 


io8  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

ridiculous  to  wear  a  dress  of  the  sort  when  she  was 
alone.  Oh,  the  occasion  would  come,  he  said,  and 
—  moved  to  prophecy  —  so,  mark  him,  would  the 
day  of  such  clothing! 

"The  vision  of  all  you  women  is  so  distorted  by 
what  fashion  decrees  for  you  that  you  don't  know 
a  beautiful  thing  when  you  see  it." 

Ann  had  not  denied  that  the  dress  was  beautiful. 
The  point  at  issue  at  the  obstinate  moment  was 
whether  it  would  be  of  use  to  her. 

The  dress  was  bought.  Ann,  perhaps  to  her  later 
regret,  never  wore  it.  Was  it  by  chance  that  Branton 
that  very  day  had  unearthed  it,  and  had  gone  into 
ecstasies  over  it?  Ann  had  told  her  to  put  it  away 
,  again,  but  had  found  it  laid  out  on  the  great  Empire 
bed  when  she  went  up  to  dress. 

Branton's  deprecating  but  venturesome  smile 
showed  that  she  expected  a  tussle.  Branton  had  had 
all  her  pleas  ready.  Such  a  shame  to  keep  some- 
thing so  exquisite  shut  away.  So  exactly  the  thing 
for  a  little  intimate  dinner;  so  precisely  enough,  so 
to  speak,  and  yet,  with  just  the  long  string  of  pearls, 
not  too  much.  Such  a  Picture.  Really  she,  Branton, 
would  like  Mrs.  Nanson  to  see  her  lady  in  this.  And 
the  occasion  might  not  occur  again  —  so  exactly 
the  occasion. 

Ann  was  conscious  that  her  frown  faltered,  lost 
conviction.  She  was  wavering.  It  was,  perhaps, 
Branton's  chance  word,  evoking  memories.  It  was, 
perhaps,  the  memories  themselves;  one  memory 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  109 

woke  another.  It  was  the  knowledge  that  her  hus- 
band, though  she  had  not  worn  it  for  him,  would  not 
have  'minded.'  Was  she  near  to  understanding  him? 
Had  he  found  it  in  him  sometimes  to  wish  her  awake 
even  if  it  should  be  for  a  lover?  But  it  was  chiefly 
because  she  herself  was  changed  from  the  Ann  who 
had  demurred,  and  because  she  had  driven  through 
Fotheringham,  —  though  she  would  not  have  ad- 
mitted this!  —  and  always  and  always,  because  she 
had  walked  in  a  wood.  She  suffered  Branton  to 
array  her  in  the  garment  of  dispute. 

When  had  her  husband's  taste  ever  been  at  fault? 
Might  she  not  have  trusted  him?  The  dress  was 
the  beautiful  Adam  library  as  all  her  other  dresses 
were  the  pretty  rubbishy  boudoir.  The  one  fly  in  the 
ointment  was  Branton's  rapture.  That  Branton's 
instinct  should  have  been  so  sure!  She  could  have 
wished  that  Branton,  her  desire  attained,  should 
have  been  disappointed,  should  have  found  the 
dress,  after  all,  too  simple,  that  only  she  herself 
should  have  seen  its  perfection.  But  Branton,  with 
the  eye  for  effect  of  a  born  lady's-maid,  had  seen, 
even  as  her  husband  with  his  trained  eye  for  beauty 
had  seen,  and  it  had  been  Branton's  mistress  who 
had  doubted. 

"Yes,  it  looks  very  nice,"  Ann  said.  "It  will  do 
very  well." 

"Well,  if  that's  all  you've  to  say  for  it,  'm!"  was 
Branton's  inward  comment. 


no  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

But,  inwardly  also,  Ann  had  more  to  say  for  it 
than  that.  Her  surrender  was  complete.  She  wished 
that  her  husband  could  have  known.  She  paused 
before  a  looking-glass  on  her  way  down  and  sur- 
veyed herself.  She  knew  that  'different*  as  she 
looked  she  had  never  looked  better.  How  different 
she  looked  and  yet  in  one  way  how  little  different ! 
It  was  as  if,  under  the  artificialities  of  her  normal 
dressing,  this  was  what  she  had  always  been  like. 
She  would  go  back,  of  course,  to  the  pretty,  fussy 
clothes  again  —  the  clothes  of  which  you  could  never 
cease  to  be  conscious  yourself  and  to  impress  con- 
sciousness on  others  —  but  it  was  very  good  for  once 
to  have  this  delightful  sense  of  freedom,  and  of  a 
different  grace. 

It  was  a  warm  evening,  and  the  windows  of  the 
smaller  drawing-room,  where  she  had  decided  that 
they  should  sit  that  night,  were  open  to  the  fragrant 
garden.  She  was  down  first,  and  she  stepped  out  on 
to  the  terrace,  where  presently  Claudia  joined  her. 
If  she  had  had  any  misgivings  as  to  her  appearance, 
—  which,  indeed,  she  had  not,  —  they  must  have 
been  laid  by  Claudia's  little  cry  of  delight. 

"Ann,  Ann,"  Claudia  said,  buzzing  round  her, 
"where  did  you  get  it?    What  artist  conceived  it? 
Paris!    Ah,  where  else?    Worth!    Ah,  who  but  het 
could  have  dreamt  of  it?" 

She  made  little  purring  sounds. 

"It's  the  plainness  of  it  —  the  almost  severe  sim- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  in 

plicity.  The  way  it  falls  and  clings.  How  tall  you 
are!  I  did  n't  know  how  tall.  You're  like  the  young 
queen  in  a  fairy  story  —  the  beautiful  Queen  who 
was  loved  by  the  Forester  who  dared  not  speak. 
Or,  somehow,  though  I  know  she  would  n't  have 
dressed  a  bit  like  that,  the  Sultan's  daughter,  Ann, 
—  the  wondrous  lovely  Sultan's  daughter  who  came 
to  the  Fountain.  Is  there  a  young  Slave,  Ann,  who 
daily  at  the  hour  of  evening  .  .  .  ?  Is  there  a  forester 
who  must  not  speak?  a  young  slave  who  must  die?  " 

"Claudia,  how  your  tongue  runs  away  with  you." 

"Ann,  do  you  know  what  an  adorable  creature 
you  are?" 

"Come  along  in,"  Ann  said,  but  not  quite  stead- 
ily, her  eyes  suddenly  misty. 

Almost  as  they  entered  by  the  window,  Whipple 
opened  the  door  and  announced,  "Mr.  Coram." 

Why,  as  she  saw  him,  did  she  know  that  this 
evening  was  to  be  different  from  any  other  evening 
on  which  he  had  dined  at  Redmayne?  She  saw  that 
the  change  in  her  appearance  did  not  escape  him, 
though  there  was  nothing  in  his  demeanour  to  show 
that  he  had  perceived  it.  As  she  advanced  to  meet 
him  she  had  a  curious  feeling,  half  apprehensive, 
half  expectant,  as  if,  indeed,  there  was  something 
different  in  this  occasion  from  any  other  that  she  had 
known.  Was  it  partly  that  she  anticipated  the  news 
that  she  was  to  hear  that  night  —  divined  that  it 
was  that  night  that  she  was  to  hear  it?  Or  was  it 
something  more  than  this?  —  a  premonition  of  what 


ii2  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

was  to  happen  to  her?  A  premonition,  at  least,  that 
something  would  happen  to  her? 

Outwardly  she  was  greeting  him  with  the  quiet 
smile  and  introducing  him  to  Claudia. 

"Only  ourselves,  you  see,"  Ann  said,  —  "not 
a  party." 

"I'm  glad  of  that,"  Coram  said.  "I  don't  like 
parties." 

Ann  challenged  that. 

"Mr.  Coram  dines  out  oftener  in  six  months  than 
I  do  in  a  year,"  she  said  to  Claudia. 

"All  the  same,"  Coram  said,  "I'm  glad  this 
is  n't  a  party  —  that  it  is  n't  a  party  to-night." 

He  did  not  say  why,  but  Ann,  dreading  anything 
that  should  confirm  her  feeling  that  this  evening 
was  not  as  other  evenings,  had  turned  to  Claudia 
and  was  settling  a  locket  which  hung  from  a  slender 
chain  about  her  neck. 

"It  will  slip  round,"  Claudia  said. 

Dinner  was  announced  a  moment  or  two  later, 
and  the  three  made  their  way  to  the  dining-room. 

Claudia  now  began  to  talk.  Perhaps  she  divined 
Ann's  apprehension.  It  was  apprehension,  now,  that 
was  uppermost.  Coram  was  inclined  to  be  silent; 
possibly  even  Ann  herself.  But  Claudia  talked  — 
always  without  appearing  to  do  the  talking,  and 
presently  the  others  found  their  tongues.  Ann  was 
grateful  to  her. 

Claudia  at  close  quarters  with  Coram  wondered 
less  than  evei*.  Ann,  though  she  should  decide  to 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  113 

tell  her,  had  nothing  to  tell  her  now.  The  wonder 
was  that  the  inevitable  should  not  have  occurred 
before.  She  was  watching  him  also,  though  her  smil- 
ing eyes  when  she  was  animated,  and  her  drooping 
eyes  when  the  moments  came  at  which  she  went 
through  her  transparent  little  widowednesses,  did 
not  appear  to  watch.  She  had,  as  we  know,  jumped 
to  her  conclusion  at  the  window  of  the  boudoir  the 
evening  before.  Nothing  that  he  did  or  did  not  do 
but  fitted  in  with  that.  If  he  looked  at  Ann  it  was 
because  ...  If  he  did  not  look  at  her,  but  kept  his 
eyes  fixed  on  his  plate  or  on  her,  Claudia  Nanson,  or 
on  anything  or  any  one  else,  it  was  equally  because 
...  If  he  talked  or  did  not  talk,  it  was  because  .  .  . 
Above  all,  it  was  Because,  if  he  ever  was  shy; 
and  we  know  that  Timothy,*  with  everything  to 
make  him  bold,  could  be  shy.  Claudia  saw  con- 
firmation everywhere ;  may  have  wished  to  see  it ;  but 
really  believed  that  she  saw  it.  Before  the  fish  was 
over,  Claudia  was  quite,  quite  certain.  If  Ann  did 
not  tell  her,  she,  greatly  daring,  would  tell  Ann. 

And  Ann  looked  superb  to-night.  What  man  but 
must  adore  her?  As  what  woman,  indeed,  but  must 
know  that  she  could  not  with  perfect  safety,  without 
the  risk,  that  is,  of  after  smartings  or  achings,  let  or 
hope  to  let  an  eye  rest  softly  on  Timothy  Coram? 
The  two  were  marked  out  by  nature  for  each  other, 
set  apart,  proclaimed.  Oh,  if  she  had  been  Ann,  if 
she,  just  pretty  as  she  was,  with  no  pretensions  to 
anything  but  fluffmess  and  feminineness  and  wiles 


ii4  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

—  if  she  had  been  Ann,  she  would  have  known  what 
to  do  ... 

The  servants  moved  silently  with  dishes  or  de- 
canters. The  wines  sparkled  in  the  glasses.  Napery 
and  silver  shone  in  the  light  of  the  candles.  The 
heavy  curtains  were  not  yet  drawn.  The  roses  out- 
side the  windows  sent  perfumed  messages  to  their 
brothers  and  sisters  on  the  table  —  the  free  roses 
outside  to  the  captive  roses  within.  There  was  a 
sky  of  a  blue  that  was  almost  green,  —  deep,  lumi- 
nous, crystal-clear,  —  and  in  it,  from  where  she  sat, 
Claudia  could  see  one  star. 

"  If  I  could  get  them  out,"  she  thought  to  herself. 
"  If  I  could  get  them  walking  under  a  sky  like  that." 

Aloud  she  said  —  talking,  though  it  might  be  (and 
she  knew  it),  of  boots:  "It's  the  wonderful  way  your 
days  melt  into  nights  —  your  days  here  in  England, 
I  mean,  —  mine,  too,  I  suppose  I  may  say,  now  that 
I  hope  I  have  done  with  the  East  and  with  travel- 
ling." 

Ann  looked  at  her  quickly.  Was  it  Claudia  who 
was  going  to  precipitate  what  she  knew  —  knew  in 
her  bones  —  that  she  was  to  hear!  She  looked,  as  if 
for  help,  at  Claudia's  locket  —  Claudia's  locket  by 
which  she  had,  she  believed,  diverted  the  talk  from 
dangerous  channels  at  the  beginning  of  the  evening. 
By  chance  it  had  turned  itself  round  again  on  its 
swivel  and  lay  with  its  setting  of  pearls,  instead  of 
its  smooth  oval  back,  against  Claudia's  neck. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  115 

But  Coram  was  speaking. 

"You  don't  like  the  East?" 

" I'm  very  glad  to  have  been  there.  But,  oh,  I 'm 
so  glad  to  be  home." 

It  was  the  right  note,  and  Ann  breathed  again. 
Claudia  at  the  same  moment  felt  her  locket  and 
turned  it.  Claudia  steered  clear  for  the  night. 

"Look,"  she  said;  "the  long,  long  twilight  and 
then  this,"  she  nodded  towards  the  star.  "Could 
one  say  to-night  when  the  twilight  ended?  Might  n't 
we  sit  out  after  dinner,  Ann?" 

"There's  no  dew,"  Coram  said.  "The  grass  was 
as  dry  as  a  bone  as  I  walked  here." 

Ann  heard  herself  saying  that  certainly  they 
would  sit  out.  She  looked  at  the  sky  and  the  single 
star  as  she  spoke,  and  she  sent  a  thought  piercing 
its  way  through  the  thicknesses  and  darknesses  of 
the  wood  to  the  lonely  figure  sitting  in  the  dusk.  It 
was  a  night  for  out-of-doors,  a  night,  when  the 
moon  should  have  risen,  for  such  a  pilgrimage  as 
that  upon  which  she  had  despatched  her  thought. 

She  gave  directions  about  the  placing  of  the 
chairs. 

But  the  silences  would  fall,  though  Claudia 
talked  never  so  gaily,  and  though  Ann  was  far  too 
good  a  hostess  ever  really  to  lose  control  of  the 
moment.  She  bowed,  not  to  any  supineness  or  to 
any  lack  of  initiative,  but  to  the  differentness  which 
insisted  on  marking  the  evening.  Something  hung 
over  it  —  a  threat  or  a  portent.  It  had  the  sense 


ii6  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

of  finality  of  last  things  —  last  meetings,  last  ac- 
tions, last  words.  It  had  the  quality  of  seeming  to 
make  memories.  She  could  conceive  saying  of  it  to 
one  of  the  other  two  in  the  remote  future,  "Do  you 
remember  how  we  did  this  or  that  that  night?  How 
we  often  sat  silent,  and  how  then  one  or  other  of  us 
talked  just  to  fill  up,  or  to  keep  the  ball  rolling,  and 
how  sometimes  we  left  long  gaps  unfilled,  or  let  the 
ball  lie  quite  still.  Do  you  remember  how  strange 
it  all  felt?  —  or  was  it,  perhaps,  only  to  me  that 
everything  felt  strange?  And  was  that  my  gown,  do 
you  think?  Do  you  remember  I  wore  an  odd  gown 
that  Vincent  insisted  on  buying  for  me  years  be- 
fore? Do  you  remember  that  I  wore  it  that  night?" 
Or, "  Do  you  remember  a  locket  you  wore,  Claudia?  " 

—  or,  "that  Claudia  Nanson  wore!  —  and  that  it 
would  turn  round?  "   Or  she  could  conceive  of  it  as  a 
mark  in  time  —  as  a  date  by  which  you  remembered 
other  things,  things  antecedent  or  subsequent  to 
itself.    But  she  did  not  yet  conceive  of  it  as  a  gulf 

—  a  gulf  dividing  all  that  had  gone  before  from  all 
that  was  to  follow  after. 

Coram's  announcement  came  when  the  servants 
had  put  the  wine  on  the  table  and  had  closed  the 
door  behind  them. 

He  had  had  his  telegram.  He  was  going.  He 
was  going  to-morrow.  . 

Ann  had  known  that  his  going  when  he  went 
would  be  sudden. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  117 

"And  that,"  he  said,  looking  at  Ann  and  then 
looking  quickly  down,  and  speaking  huskily  — 
"that's  what's  the  matter  with  me." 

Ann's  eyes  did  not  falter,  her  hands  which  were 
clasped  across  her  breast  did  not  tremble.  It  was 
Coram's  hands  that  trembled.  He  put  down  a  peach 
which  he  had  taken  absently,  and  the  knife  with 
which  he  had  been  as  absently  peeling  it,  and  pushed 
back  his  chair  a  little. 

Claudia  made  an  involuntary  movement. 

He  turned  to  her. 

"I  ought  to  apologize  to  you,"  he  said ;  "  I  ought  to 
apologize  to  you  both  for  —  for  being  such  a  wet- 
blanket  at  the  feast,"  he  picked  his  words  with  dif- 
ficulty, knowing  that  he  was  floundering.  "I — I 
just  have  n't  been  able  to  help  it." 

"Oh,"  Claudia  murmured  vaguely,  "no,  no," 
and,  "Of  course,  I  understand." 

"Thirteen  years,  Mrs.  Nanson,"  he  said.  "It's 
a  good  slice  of  one's  life." 

"Thirteen  years,"  Ann  said.  "  Is  it  thirteen 
years?" 

She  felt  as  if  her  mind  was  wandering.  Thirteen 
or  thirty  was  it?  So  much  or  so  little!  What  did  it 
matter  how  long  or  how  short  the  period  was,  since 
it  was  over? 

"I  got  the  telegram  a  couple  of  hours  ago;  I 
found  it  when  I  got  home.  It  had  been  waiting  for 
me." 

He  turned  again  to  Claudia  and  explained  briefly 


ii8  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

to  her,  In  a  sort  of  parenthesis,  what  had  caused  the 
delays  and  uncertainties  which  had  come  to  an  end 
so  abruptly;  and  turned  then  to  Ann.  She  could 
hardly  attend  to  what  he  was  saying.  She  gathered 
that  his  friend  had  but  that  morning  succeeded  in 
settling  his  affairs.  The  stock  or  shares,  or  whatever 
they  were,  had  touched  the  point,  or  whatever  it 
was,  for  which  he  had  been  waiting,  and  he  was  free. 
Coram,  who  by  agreement  with  him,  as  of  course 
with  Ann  herself,  had  been  holding  himself  ready 
to  start  at  a  moment's  notice,  was  to  join  him  the 
next  day  in  London  for  the  final  arrangements. 
Unless  anything  unforeseen  happened  to  prevent 
them,  they  proposed  to  sail  the  day  after.  Ann  had 
known  long  since  that  he  was  going  to  Amer- 
ica, first.  Berths,  it  seemed,  were  available  in  the 
Celtic. 

She  was  not  listening.  She  was  watching  Co- 
ram's  face,  and  Claudia's,  and  the  way  that  the 
light  threw  shadows. 

"But  even  now,"  Coram  said,  "if  you  would 
rather  that  I  waited  —  that  I  put  off,  anyway,  for 
a  week,  or  two  — " 

"Of  course,  you  must  n't  put  off  going,"  Ann  said. 
"I  would  n't  hear  of  it.  I  need  n't  tell  you  again 
that  we  shall  miss  you  —  the  tenants,  your  friends, 
all  of  us.  But  there's  nothing  in  the  way  of  your 
going  but  our  reluctance  to  part  with  you,  and  thai> 
is  purely  selfish.  You  must  go,  Mr.  Coram." 

Claudia  now  said,  "Ann,  you  and  Mr.  Coram  will 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  119 

have  things  you  want  to  discuss.  Let  me  leave  you 
for  a  little  and  join  you  later." 

But  Ann  shook  her  head. 

"No,"  she  said;  "that's  all  been  done.  Every- 
thing is  settled.  I  have  been  waiting  for  this  tele- 
gram as  actually  as  Mr.  Coram  himself.  I  knew  it 
would  come  suddenly.  That  is  in  the  nature  of  a 
telegram,  is  n't  it?  Shall  we  go  into  the  garden? 
But  you  '11  have  some  more  wine,  Mr.  Coram.  Will 
you  follow  us?" 

"May  n't  I  come  with  you?"  Coram  said. 

They  rose,  and  as  they  left  the  room  Ann  laid  a 
light  but  restraining  hand  on  Claudia's  arm. 

And  in  the  garden  Ann  contrived  to  keep  Claudia 
near  her.  Twice  Claudia  attempted  to  escape,  and 
twice  Ann  anticipated  her  intention  and  thwarted 
it:  once  by  involving  her  with  the  tea-things  which 
had  been  brought  out  to  a  table  which  had  been 
placed  in  readiness  for  them  —  '  Pour  out  for  me  like 
a  good  woman '  —  and  once,  as  before,  by  the  light 
but  restraining  hand  on  her  arm.  Why  she  did  this 
she  could  not  have  said.  Was  she  afraid  to  be  alone 
with  Coram?  —  afraid  for  the  very  ardour  of  her 
wish  to  be  alone  with  him?  As  the  darkness  fell, 
secure  moreover  in  the  presence  of  Claudia,  she 
allowed  her  eyes  to  rest  upon  him.  She  was  in 
shadow;  he,  just  touched  by  the  light  from  the 
drawing-room  window  behind  her.  Claudia  from 
where  she  sat  could  not  see  her  face,  but  Ann's  hand 


120  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

rested  on  the  wicker  arm  of  her  chair.  Presently 
she  felt  Claudia's  hand  take  hers.  She  knew  that 
Claudia  was  trying  to  communicate  with  her,  but 
she  ignored  her  intention.  Owls  were  hooting  softly. 
A  bat  skimmed  by  sometimes.  There  was  a  night- 
jar somewhere. 

"So  I  was  glad,  you  see,  that  this  was  n't  a  dinner 
party,"  Coram  said. 

"I  think  I  knew  what  you  meant  when  you  said 
that,"  Ann  said.  She  was,  at  least,  quite  certain  of 
her  voice.  "  I  think  I  knew  then  that  you  had  come 
to  tell  me  that  you  were  going." 

She  could  risk  that,  too.  She  might  show,  even  to 
repetition,  that  she  was  sorry  that  he  was  going.  She 
had  only  not  to  show  how  sorry. 

He,  with  nothing  to  conceal,  showed  quite  plainly 
how  sorry  he  was  to  go. 

So  they  talked  and  did  not  talk.  A  numbness 
began  to  creep  over  Ann.  The  moments  were  slipping 
by.  Was  she  feeling  anything?  —  feeling  anything 
really?  She  had  felt  more  than  this,  felt  far  more 
than  this,  when  she  knew  only  that  the  day  was  com- 
ing when  he  would  go.  Now  the  day  had  come  and 
the  last  moments  when  she  could  still  see  him  and 
speak  to  him  and  touch  him  were  slipping  away. 
Presently  he  would  make  a  move.  She  had  heard 
ten  o'clock  strike  in  the  drawing-room,  and  now 
the  clock  was  striking  again.  It  was  eleven  o'clock. 
They  had  sat  out  two  hours !  Two  hours !  It  seemed 
impossible,  but  also  it  seemed  as  if,  in  this  warm 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  121 

night,  a  very  lifetime  of  hours  had  passed  and  was 
passing. 

And  they  had  said  all  that  there  seemed  to  say, 
and  they  had  said  nothing,  and  there  was  nothing  to 
say.  And  presently  he  would  go. 

She  began  to  wish  that  he  would  go.  At  length 
he  rose.  Perhaps  because  his  feelings  were  acute  he 
became  formal.  He  would  have  an  early  start  in  the 
morning.  He  had  got  some  of  his  packing  to  do. 
He  had  to  leave  a  note  for  Bulkley  before  he  went 
home. 

Ann  thought:  "I'm  not  wanting  to  delay  you. 
Goodness  knows  I  don't  want  to  delay  you.  Go.  Go. 
Please  go." 

In  spite  of  herself  her  manner  became  cold.  She 
saw  Claudia  look  at  her. 

Then  everything  went  awry,  got  out  of  hand, 
missed  fire.  She  had  a  feeling  of  looking  on  help- 
lessly at  herself  as  she  said  last  words  to  him.  She 
might  have  been  saying  polite  things  to  a  visitor. 

She  said,  "Could  n't  I  send  your  note  for  you?" 
—  Mr.  Bulkley  lodged  in  the  village,  a  mile  beyond 
Redmayne.  "  It 's  so  out  of  your  way.  You  '11  be  so 
late  before  you  get  home  and  you've  got  to  pack." 

"Not  if  I  go  by  the  path  and  come  back  this 
way.  Besides,  if  I  find  him  up,  I  'd  like  a  word  with 
him." 

"Yes,  perhaps  you  may  find  him  up,"  Ann  said. 

She  could  not  help  herself. 

Claudia  showed  more  warmth  than  she. 


122  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Good-bye,  Mr.  Coram,"  Claudia  said.  "Bon 
voyage,  and  all  the  very,  very  best  wishes." 

She  did  manage  to  slip  away  then.  But  there  were 
the  servants  to  say  good-bye  to,  and  she  doubted 
now  whether  Ann  and  he  would  see  each  other  for  a 
moment  alone.  As  she  went  upstairs  she  heard  him 
taking  leave  of  Whipple,  and  of  Mrs.  Piper,  who 
had  come  from  the  housekeeper's  room  to  wish  him 
godspeed.  She  heard  their  regrets  and  their  fervent 
good  wishes. 

"All  but  Ann,"  she  said  to  herself;  "all  but  Ann." 

She  meant  that  every  one  showed  feeling  but  Ann. 

Ten  minutes  later  she  was  speaking. 

"Ann,  Ann,  Ann,"  was  what  she  said  when  she 
had  drawn  a  ghostlike  Ann  into  her  room,  an  Ann 
who  was  wide-eyed,  and  whose  teeth  were  chatter- 
ing. "Ann,  can't  you  see?" 

"Can't  I  see  what?"  Ann  said  dully. 

"Wait,"  Claudia  said.  "May  I  send  Branton  to 
bed?" 

"Yes,"  Ann  said.  "Tell  her  I  shan't  want  her. 
But  why?  Why?" 

She  seemed  glad  that  Claudia  should  have  thought 
of  that. 

Claudia  sped  from  the  room. 

When  a  moment  or  two  later  she  came  back,  she 
found  Ann  standing  just  inside  the  door  and  exactly 
as  she  had  left  her.  Ann  looked  at  her  enquiringly. 

"Can't  I  see  what?"  she  repeated,  as  if  there  had 
been  no  interruption.  "  Can't  I  see  what,  Claudia?" 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  123 

"You  would  n't  let  me  go,"  Claudia  said.  "  I  tried. 
You  knew  I  was  trying.  You  were  horrid  to  him. 
You  said  good-bye  to  him  as  if  he  had  been  going 
away  for  the  week-end.  You  can't  let  him  go  like 
that.  You  can't.  Is  it  possible  that  you  don't  know 
—  is  it  possible  that  you  can't  see  why  he's  going?" 

They  looked  at  each  other. 

Claudia  nodded. 

" It's  as  plain  as  a  pikestaff,"  she  said;  "and  he's 
not  going  for  any  silly  or  romantic  reasons,  either. 
He 's  entirely  matter-of-fact.  He 's  in  love  with  you 
and  he  thinks  it  would  n't  Do.  Just  that.  But  he 's 
going  because  he's  in  love  with  you." 

"Claudia,  if  I  thought  you  were  right!" 

It  was  no  ghostlike  Ann  who  said  that. 

And  Claudia  was  so  certain  that  she  was  right, 
and  the  moment  was  big  with  reaction,  and  Co- 
ram  would  pass  through  the  garden  on  his  way 
home.  .  .  . 

So  it  came  that  to  Coram,  in  an  unusual  mood, 
strung  up  already  by  the  emotions  of  the  strange 
evening,  excited,  aching,  even,  there  appeared  out 
of  the  shadow  of  the  darkened  and  silent  house 
the  surprising  sight  of  the  trembling  Ann.  He  came 
near  to  her.  Each  was  mistaken.  She,  of  her  want 
of  knowledge,  of  her  very  innocence;  he,  of  what  his 
experiences  had  taught  him.  She  stumbled  forward. 
She  was  near  fainting.  She  had  miscalculated  her 
strength,  but  his  natural  tenderness  would,  anyway, 


124  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

have  disarmed  her.  And  he,  utterly  misapprehend- 
ing, proud,  but  very  humble  also,  as  one  to  whom 
some  amazing  honour  has  unexpectedly  been  done, 
knew  only  one  way  of  dealing  with  a  woman  whom 
he  found  in  his  arms. 

Not  a  hundred  words  were  spoken.    Ann  always 
remembered  that  she  had  seen  tears  in  his  eyes. 


THE  SECOND  BOOK 


BOOK  THE  SECOND 

CHAPTER  I 

WHEN  Ann  found  that  Timothy  Coram  had  gone, 
that  the  night  before  had  had  no  effect  upon  his 
plans,  —  plans  which  he  had  been  speaking  of  only 
an  hour  earlier  as  alterable  if  need  be,  even  then,  — 
the  world  seemed  like  to  collapse  about  her  ears. 

"Even  now,"  she  could  hear  him  say,  —  "even 
now  if  you  would  rather  that  I  waited  —  that  I  put 
off,  anyway  for  a  week  or  two  ..." 

And  that  was  before  —  while  as  yet  what  had 
happened  had  been  unthought  of,  inconceivable 
even.  And  the  inconceivable  had  become,  not  the 
conceivable  only,  but  the  inevitable,  the  natural 
consequence,  the  accomplished;  and  he  was  gone! 
She  could  not  at  first  believe  her  ears. 

She  had  taken  it  so  completely  for  granted  that  he 
would  not  go  —  believed,  indeed,  behind  that,  that 
now  he  would  not  go  at  all.  All  the  morning  she 
had  expected  him.  No  doubt  of  him  had  entered  her 
mind,  as  no  doubt  of  him  had  had  any  part  soever 
in  such  misgivings  as  had  occasionally,  but  then 
only  momentarily,  stirred  under  her  happiness  in 
the  rest  of  the  short  summer  night.  She  had  lain 
quite,  quite  still  in  the  silence  and  the  darkness 
thinking  her  long,  long  thoughts.  Only  towards 


128  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

dawn  had  she  slept,  and  then  she  had  awakened 
early  to  happy  waking  dreams. 

She  stole  from  her  room  to  Claudia's,  before  the 
servants  were  moving,  to  kiss  her  and  to  be  held 
for  a  few  moments  in  Claudia's  arms.  She  told  her 
nothing.  Claudia  asked  her  nothing.  There  seemed 
no  need  of  words  between  them.  A  few  hours  later 
they  had  met  at  breakfast,  radiant,  confident,  ex- 
pectant, and  at  peace. 

And  Claudia  had  really  been  wonderful.  She 
was  'there'  all  the  time  —  just  'there'  if  Ann  should 
want  her;  and  Ann,  humming  from  sheer  gladness 
of  heart  and  unbounded,  unquestioning  faith,  had 
waited  contentedly  for  the  sight  of  Coram  himself, 
or  for  Whipple  to  come  and  tell  her  that  he  was  in 
the  library.  For  very  happiness  she  could  settle  to 
nothing.  Claudia  wrote  letters  in  the  boudoir.  Ann 
looked  in  upon  her  from  time  to  time,  knowing  that 
she  would  not  be  questioned,  and  Claudia  did  not 
look  up,  or  looked  up  and  smiled,  and  talked  of  noth- 
ing nearer  to  the  thoughts  of  either  of  them  than 
Shakespeare,  say,  and  the  musical  glasses.  In  other 
words,  Claudia  showed  herself  to  be  all  that  a  con- 
fidante—  a  confidante,  moreover,  who  in  a  sense 
had  not  yet  even  been  confided  in  —  should  be. 
Ann  was  unspeakably  grateful  to  her.  But  the  hours 
passed. 

At  twelve  o'clock,  Ann,  still  quite  easy,  had  drawn 
Claudia  from  her  letters  to  play  croquet.  For  a  time 
the  game  held  her  —  the  odd,  wide-hooped,  short- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  129 

malleted  game  of  those  days,  with  its  delicious  cro- 
quet ings,  one  foot  on  your  own  ball,  a  thrill  for  you 
in  the  click  which  sent  your  opponent's  ball  rolling 
away,  leaving  your  own,  of  course,  steady!  —  and 
its  double  hoop  in  the  middle  —  a  bell  even  to  tinkle 
your  satisfaction  when  you  had  successfully  engi- 
neered it!  For  a  time  she  played  steadily,  able,  in 
spite  of  her  preoccupation,  to  take  an  interest  in 
what  she  was  doing.  But  presently  her  interest 
began  to  flag.  She  would  forget  her  turn.  Claudia 
would  have  to  say,  " Black  to  play,"  or,  "Blue  to 
play,"  as  the  case  might  be.  Once  Claudia  saw  her 
play  with  yellow,  and  when  she  saw  that  she  was  un- 
conscious of  her  mistake  did  not  draw  her  attention 
to  it.  It  did  not  seem  expedient  or  even  worth  while. 
Ann  noticed  nothing  even  when  Claudia  played 
with  the  ball  which  she  had  herself  just  struck. 
It  was  then,  however,  that  Claudia  began  to  be  un- 
easy. 

Ann  looked  at  her  watch. 

"Shall  we  stop?"  Ann  said.  "We  can  finish  the 
game  after  luncheon." 

"Yes,"  Claudia  said,  —  "any  time,"  thinking 
that  it  was,  indeed,  the  sort  of  game  that  need  not 
be  finished  at  all. 

"The  sun  is  so  hot,"  Ann  said.  But  she  did  not 
move  out  of  the  sun. 

"I  think  I'll  finish  my  letters." 

"Oh,  need  you?"  Ann  said.  "The  post  doesn't 
go  till  six." 


130  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

No,  Claudia  said,  there  was  no  hurry. 

She  was  ready  to  do  whatever  might  be  required 
of  her.  Walk  or  talk  or  make  herself  scarce.  What 
did  Ann  want?  Impossible  to  say,  when  it  became 
manifest  —  as  now  began  to  happen  rapidly  —  that 
Ann  did  not  know  herself  what  she  wanted.  She  was 
waiting  for  something  or  some  one;  so  much  was 
clear. 

They  loitered  in  the  garden.  Presently  Ann  went 
in.  Claudia,  left  to  herself,  wandered  down  one  of 
the  paths.  Five  minutes  had  not  passed  before  she 
saw  that  Ann  had  come  out  again. 

What  ailed  her? 

She  had  come  out  through  the  drawing-room  win- 
dow, and  was  standing  now  where  they  had  sat  the 
evening  before.  At  the  distance  from  which  she  ob- 
served her  Claudia  could  not  see  her  face,  but  some- 
thing in  her  attitude  filled  her  with  disquietude. 

At  luncheon  Ann  made  hardly  a  pretence  of  eating. 
Claudia,  rather  hungry  herself,  curbed  her  inclina- 
tions, to  cover  as  far  as  might  be  her  hostess's  lack 
of  appetite.  She  would  have  liked  another  cutlet, 
but  nobly  said,  "No,  thank  you,"  at  the  sight  of 
Ann's  relinquished  knife  and  fork.  But  as  luncheon 
came  to  an  end  Ann  brightened.  It  was  as  if  new 
hope  had  come  to  her.  One  period  was  over,  another 
beginning.  There  was,  she  might  have  been  think-4 
ing,  all  the  afternoon  .  .  . 

"You  would  like  to  drive,"  she  said,  "would  n't 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  131 

you?  I  think,  if  you  won't  mind  going  alone,  that  I 
won't  go  out  this  afternoon.  Have  you  any  shop- 
ping to  do,  or  would  you  like  just  a  drive?" 

Claudia  bethought  her  of  this  and  of  that  that  she 
wanted. 

"But  you're  not  ordering  the  carriage  to  enter- 
tain me,  are  you?  You  know,  don't  you,  that  I 
have  n't  got  to  be  '  entertained'?" 

' '  No,"  Ann  said,  smiling.  ' '  Go  for  a  drive.  We  'II 
finish  our  game  of  croquet  after  tea." 

So  at  half-past  three  o'clock,  though  by  that  time 
there  were  signs  that  Ann's  restlessness  was  return- 
ing, Claudia  mounted  into  the  great  Redmayne 
barouche  and  went  for  her  drive. 

In  truth,  Ann's  restlessness  was  returning.  She 
was  looking,  as  Claudia  had  divined,  to  the  afternoon 
to  make  up  for  the  surprising  disappointment  of  the 
morning.  A  hundred  things  might  have  happened 
to  hinder  Coram  from  coming  to  her  earlier.  The 
very  change  in  his  plans  —  she  had  still  no  doubt 
about  that  —  made  it  impossible  that  he  should 
come  to  her  before  luncheon.  He  had  had  to  com- 
municate with  his  friend.  Telegrams  probably  had 
been  passing  between  them  all  the  morning.  And  he 
would  have  had  to  see  Mr.  Bulkley  —  for  whom,  by 
the  way,  since  his  promotion  would  now  at  least  be 
postponed,  she  must  see  that  satisfactory  arrange- 
ments were  made.  Easy  enough  to  account  for  the 


132  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

morning.  But  three  o'clock  had  come  and  gone;  a 
quarter-past  three;  half-past.  Would  the  afternoon 
pass  like  the  morning? 

It  was  at  a  little  after  four  that  she  saw  Whipple 
crossing  the  lawn  towards  her.  Her  heart  bounded 
at  the  sight  she  had  been  awaiting  all  day,  and  it 
was  with  difficulty  that  she  prevented  herself  from 
going  to  meet  him.  If  she  had  moved  she  must  have 
run  towards  him.  She  sat  still  —  trembling  if  he 
could  have  seen  —  watching  his  approach.  How 
slowly  he  came!  She  watched  the  rise  and  fall  of  his 
deliberate  feet.  He  shaded  his  eyes  from  the  sun 
with  one  hand.  Could  he  not  speak  from  where  he 
was  —  speak  as  he  came,  and  so  save  time?  But  he 
was  too  well-bred  a  servant  to  speak  till  he  was  quite 
near.  He  need  not  speak  at  all  if  he  only  knew.  She 
was  so  sure  that  she  knew  what  he  was  going  to  say. 
There  was  only  one  thing  that  he  could  have  to 
say.  Now  he  judged  himself  near  enough.  He  was, 
as  it  were,  in  the  presence. 

"Mr.  Bulkley  to  see  you,  'm.  He  is  in  the  library." 

So  prepared  had  she  been  for  what  she  had  ex- 
pected to  hear,  that  for  a  moment  she  did  not  ob- 
serve that  what  she  had  expected  was  not  what  he 
had  said. 

"Very  well,  Whipple.  Tell  Mr.— "  She  got  as 
far  as  that.  She  broke  off. 

"Mr.  Who?" 

"Mr.  Bulkley,  'm." 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  133 

"You  mean  Mr.  — " 

"Yes,  'm,  Mr.  Bulkley." 

She  looked  at  him  still  as  if  she  had  not  heard 
aright. 

"Oh,  Mr.  Bulkley,"  she  said  at  last. 

Whipple,  who  was  waiting,  said,  "Yes,  'm," 
again. 

"Tell  Mr.  Bulkley  I  will  be  with  him  in  a  mo- 
ment." 

She  sat  still  then,  watching  Whipple  retrace 
his  deliberate  steps.  This  time  she  saw  that  he 
shaded  the  back  of  his  head. 

"Mr.  Bulkley?"  she  said  to  herself.  "Mr.  Bulk- 
ley?" 

It  was  not  for  a  moment  or  two  after  she  had 
greeted  him,  and  they  had  sat  down,  that  Ann 
realized  the  purport  of  his  visit.  This  was  his  formal 
call  upon  taking  office  —  a  shaking  hands,  as  it 
were,  upon  his  appointment. 

He  may  have  wondered  at  a  little  sudden  move- 
ment that  she  made.  It  was  with  difficulty  that  she 
kept  a  'But*  from  an  enquiry  which  yet  took  the 
form  of  an  exclamation. 

"Mr.  Coram?" 

"He  went  by  the  ten  o'clock  train." 

The  '  But '  came  from  her  now,  detached ;  it  began 
a  sentence  which  never  was  finished. 

"Oh,  you  mean  he  went  up  to  London." 

"Yes,  to  London." 


134  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

For  a  moment  Ann  had  breathed  again,  but  Bulk- 
ley  had  not  finished. 

"He  had  the  narrowest  shave  of  missing  his  train. 
I  saw  him  off.  It  was  in  the  station  when  we  drove 
up.  He  was  delayed,  you  see,  at  the  starting." 

"Delayed?"     Ann  said. 

"Such  a  lot  of  them  to  say  good-bye  to.  I  don't 
know  how  so  many  of  the  tenants  had  time  to  know 
that  he  was  going  this  morning  —  it  was  all  so  hur- 
ried and  sudden.  But  they  had  known  for  some  days 
that  he  might  be  going  at  any  moment,  and  I  sup- 
pose news  got  round  last  night  that  he  had  got  his 
telegram." 

Perhaps  what  Ann's  face  showed  seemed  bewil- 
derment, for  Bulkley  now  said:  "You  knew,  Mrs. 
Forrester,  did  n't  you?" 

' '  Oh,  yes,"  Ann  heard  herself  answering.  ' '  I  knew. 
Mr.  Coram  was  dining  here  last  night." 

"I  only  knew  this  morning,"  Bulkley  said.  "He 
had  left  a  note  for  me  last  night,  but  I  was  in  bed 
and  he  had  n't  knocked  me  up.  However,  I  got  it 
at  seven  this  morning,  and  I  was  round  with  him 
by  half-past  eight." 

He  was  gone,  then. 

But  he  could  n't  be  gone  —  could  n't  really  be 
gone. 

Mr.  Bulkley  thought  he  was  gone,  but  he  was  n't. 
There  was  some  explanation  even  if  he  had  let  them 
all  think  he  was  gone,  even  if,  as  he  seemed  to  have 
done,  he  had  taken  his  luggage!  She  fought  with 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  135 

herself  for  that.  Well,  then,  he  had  gone  up  to  Lon- 
don, prepared  to  go  if  he  must,  but  he  knew  in  his 
heart  that  he  no  longer  intended  to  go  and  he  would 
be  back  the  next  day. 

But  Bulkley's  next  words  shattered  even  that. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "an  awful  rush  at  the  end.  He 
left  a  portmanteau  behind  him,  after  all.  I  've  just 
had  a  telegram  from  him  from  London.  I  'm  to  send 
it  to  Liverpool." 

What  Ann  felt  was  a  sort  of  stupefaction.  Through 
it  she  heard  herself  and  Mr.  Bulkley  talk  on.  Though 
she  herself  was  numb,  she  seemed  to  have  two  or 
three  minds  which  were  able  to  occupy  themselves 
in  separate  ways  at  the  same  moment.  With  one  of 
them  she  talked  and  listened,  never  losing  sense  of 
what  she  said.  With  another  she  was  thinking  that 
Whipple  should  have  shown  Mr.  Bulkley  into  the 
drawing-room  and  not  the  library.  This  was,  as  she 
had  divined,  a  visit  of  ceremony.  With  yet  another 
she  was  living  through  every  moment  of  the  night 
before.  Yet,  spiritually,  sensation  was  suspended. 
She  was  not  consciously  suffering  now. 

Mr.  Bulkley  presently  rose  to  go.  Ann  asked  him 
to  stay  for  tea,  but  he  excused  himself  on  the  ground 
of  business  that  he  had  to  see  to,  and,  uncertain  how 
long  her  immunity  might  last,  she  did  not  press  him. 

Only  as  he  was  saying  good-bye  did  he  make  any 
allusion  to  the  change  brought  about  in  his  own  cir- 
cumstances by  Coram's  departure. 


I36  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"I  hope  I  shall  deserve  the  confidence  you  have 
shown  in  me,"  he  said.  "I  want  to  say,  but  I  can't 
say,  how  I  appreciate  it,  and  how  I  appreciate  being 
allowed  even  to  follow  a  man  like  Coram." 

That  brought  it  home  to  her  —  a  touch  of  emo- 
tion in  some  one  else's  voice.  Coram  was  gone. 


CHAPTER  II 

CLAUDIA,  uneasy  as  she  was,  enjoyed  her  drive. 
The  day,  despite  the  absence  of  dew  the  night  before, 
which  might  have  been  supposed  to  presage  rain, 
was  perfect.  Impossible  not  to  enjoy  so  balmy  an 
air  and  such  radiant  sunshine.  Impossible,  too,  if 
you  were  Claudia,  not  to  enjoy  sitting  back  amongst 
the  cushions  of  the  roomy  carriage,  and,  even  if  as 
yet  there  was  no  one  to  see  you,  feeling  how  very 
important  you  looked.  She  allowed  herself  to  yield 
to  the  pleasant  influences  of  the  hour.  Very  soon 
these  had  their  own  influence  on  her  spirits,  and, 
though  she  was  always  conscious  of  an  uneasiness 
under  her  ease,  she  was  able  to  keep  it  in  its  place. 
All  would  be  well.  All  would  assuredly  be  well. 
When  she  got  home  she  would  find  that  —  that  — 
well,  whatever  Ann  had  been  hoping  for  or  expecting 
had  happened.  If  Ann,  as  she  could  not  but  suppose, 
had  had  reason  to  believe  that  Mr.  Coram  would 
have  put  off  his  departure,  and  it  was  thus  a  visit 
from  him  that  she  had  been  looking  for,  Claudia 
would  hear  on  her  return  from  her  drive  that  he  had 
called.  If  it  was  a  letter  that  Ann  awaited,  she  would 
find  that  the  letter  had  come.  All  would  be  well. 
She  was  quite  sure  of  it.  It  would  be  good  to  hear 
that  all  was  well.  Meanwhile  it  was  very  delight- 
ful in  the  big,  soft,  smooth-rolling  carriage.  All  its 


I38  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

appointments  pleased  her.  So  did  the  comfortable 
servants  in  their  imposing  liveries  on  the  box.  So, 
as  we  may  know  by  this  time,  did  her  own  mourn- 
ing appearance. 

Her  thoughts,  to  the  tune  of  the  even  trotting  of 
the  horses  and  the  subdued  rumble  of  the  wheels, 
played  gently  round  Ann's  romance  as  she  con- 
ceived it,  and  round  her  own  share  in  it.  She  could 
not  but  know  that,  whatever  check  had  come  with 
the  passing  of  the  morning  which  had  begun  so 
rosily,  she  had  helped  Ann  the  night  before.  She 
could  only  guess  at  what  had  occurred  after  her 
outburst.  But  for  her  "Ann,  Ann,  Ann,"  Coram, 
hero  meet  for  any  romance,  would  have  departed 
—  would  have  been  allowed  to  depart  —  in  silence. 
Ann  owed  her  the  happiness  which  had  transfigured 
the  face  which  had  bent  over  her  in  the  early,  early 
hours.  Her  own  face  glowed  in  the  recollection  of 
that  wordless  embrace.  Could  one,  looking  at  Ann, 
have  guessed  that  she  was  capable  of  such  depths 
of  feeling?  He  probably  had  not  guessed.  The  key 
to  the  whole  situation  lay  there.  Ann,  ghostlike, 
wide-eyed,  shivering  .  .  .  Ann,  beaming,  radiant, 
brimming  .  .  .  could  one  have  imagined?  She  let 
herself  construct  a  picture  of  what  had  taken  place. 
Easy  to  do  this  from  her  knowledge  of  the  state  of 
mind  of  one  of  the  actors  (yes,  knowledge)  —  had 
not  Ann  let  her  see?  —  could  she,  Claudia,  have 
avoided  seeing?  —  and  from  her  certainty  (yes, 
certainty,  certainty!)  of  the  state  of  mind  of  the 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  139 

other.  The  very  beauty  of  the  starlit  night  helped 
her.  Had  she  not  earlier  in  the  evening  said  to  her- 
self, "  If  I  could  get  them  out  —  if  I  could  get  them 
out  walking  under  such  a  sky!"?  And  that  was 
what  she  had  done.  The  one  star  had  long  since 
given  place  to  many  stars.  While  as  yet  they  were 
all  three  sitting  out  in  front  of  the  drawing-room 
windows,  the  night  had  been  athrob  with  stars.  It 
had  gained  in  beauty  without  losing  what  the  one 
star  had  seemed  to  give  it.  The  night  might  be 
counted  on  to  have  done  its  part.  She  could  see 
Coram  striding  back.  She  could  think  of  him  as 
glancing  at  the  spot  where  that  deadliness  of  con- 
straint had  come  over  him  when  he  had  risen  to  go 
half  an  hour  before,  paralyzing  his  tongue,  turning 
his  last  words  to  foolishness  and  his  last  moments  to 
torment. 

And  she  could  see  Ann  waiting,  trembling,  mov- 
ing forward  .  .  . 

We  know  how  nearly  the  picture  approached  to 
truth.  But  the  picture  remained  unfinished.  Be- 
yond the  point  —  the  moving  forward  of  Ann  —  she 
could  not  see. 

The  carriage  was  approaching  Windlestone.  The 
country  roads,  dotted  with  an  occasional  cottage  or 
farmstead,  assumed  a  more  urban  aspect.  Hoardings 
began  to  be  seen.  Ginnett's  Circus  was  Coming; 
ladies  flying  through  hoops,  or  over  broad  streamers 
manipulated  by  grimacing  clowns,  announced  that. 


I4o  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Claudia  read  in  passing  that  the  Procession  would 
be  a  Mile  Long  —  and  spaced  it  for  herself!  "A 
Woman  of  the  People"  held  the  theatre.  Dingier 
posters,  torn  now  and  flapping,  or  partly  pasted 
over,  showed  that  at  some  more  or  less  recent  date 
Womwell's  Menagerie  had  paid  its  visit  to  this 
town.  A  Panorama  of  the  Holy  Land  was  at  the  As- 
sembly Rooms.  These  announcements,  with  others, 
made  the  approaches  to  the  town  ugly  but  inter- 
esting. So  did  the  small  shops  that  now  began  to 
appear ;  so  did  the  people  who  paused  to  look  at  the 
carriage  as  it  passed;  so  did  the  busyish  railway 
station. 

Now  they  were  in  the  town  itself  —  a  delightful 
old  town  once  you  were  fairly  in  it  —  and  Charles 
was  turning  for  directions.  Claudia  had  to  think  of 
what  she  wanted  —  a  glass  for  her  watch. 

1 '  Parless's ' '  —  Charles  to  Fenton.  ' '  Parless's,  'm, 
in  the  High  Street"  —  Charles  to  Claudia. 

A  bareheaded  young  man,  and  then  Mr.  Parless 
himself,  bareheaded  also  and  bowing,  came  out  to 
the  carriage. 

A  few  moments.  A  few  moments,  at  the  outside. 
Yes,  these  glasses  broke  so  easily.  Then  the  pleasant 
little  waiting  while  the  fitting  was  done ;  passers-by 
loitering  or  turning  to  look  at  you.  Then  the  young 
man  again  with  the  watch  in  silver  paper,  and  the 
trifling  account,  and  Mr.  Parless  again  bowing. 

The  weather  was  very  seasonable,  and  Mrs.  For- 
rester was  quite  well,  thank  you.  No,  not  in  London 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  141 

this  year.  Yes,  Claudia  agreed,  it  often  did  seem  a 
pity  to  go  to  London  at  the  time  of  year  when  the 
country  was  so  agreeable.  No,  that  was  all,  thank 
you.  Good-afternoon  from  the  bowing  shop-keeper 
and  good-day  from  the  lady. 

The  post-office.  Only  stamps  there,  and  those 
Charles  could  buy  for  her.  Twenty-four  penny  and 
twelve  halfpenny.  The  pleasant  important  wait- 
ing again.  It  was  very  like  having  carriages  and 
horses  and  menservants  of  your  own.  Yes,  Claudia 
was  enjoying  herself. 

Charles  again  waiting  for  orders,  all  attention 
and  deference. 

But  now  Claudia  had  to  think  of  something  to 
want.  Oh,  well,  you  always  wanted  thread  for  your 
work,  and  you  always  wanted  new  patterns. 

A  draper's?  Elbow  and  Clinton's  in  Park  Square. 
No,  not,  Claudia  thought,  a  draper's  exactly.  A  shop 
where  needlework  was  sold;  materials  for  needle- 
work. 

"Oh,  Miss  Blondin's,  'm.  The  Berlin  Wool  Shop." 

That  had  the  right  sound. 

"Yes,  Miss  Blondin's,"  said  Claudia. 

The  Berlin  Wool  Shop,  Miss  Blondin's,  —  Miss 
Blondin  in  full  over  the  door,  —  was  in  Rochester 
Street,  the  oldest  part  of  the  town.  Claudia,  enter- 
ing Miss  Blondin's,  and  received  by  the  great  Miss 
Blondin  herself,  had  almost  forgotten  her  uneasi- 
ness. The  atmosphere  of  Miss  Blondin's  —  every- 
thing contributing,  the  names,  the  fanlights,  the 


I42  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

round  windows  — was  so  exactly  in  keeping  with 
the  spirit  of '  her  fondest  imaginings  of  what  shop- 
ping should  be  in  a  country  town,  that  all  that  was 
disturbing  was  put  from  her  mind.  Miss  Blondin 
might  have  stepped  out  of  Cranford. 

She  must  have  seen  the  Redmayne  liveries  from 
the  window,  for  Claudia  had  not  been  a  minute  in 
the  shop  before  she  contrived  to  let  her  know  that 
Mrs.  Forrester  was  one  of  her  most  valued  customers. 
Claudia  bought  her  modest  threads  and  proceeded  to 
the  fascinating  inspection  of  the  patterns.  Enthrall- 
ing to  Claudia,  who  loved  needlework,  every  faint 
blue  tracing. 

"Sweetly  pretty  are  they  not,  *m?"  said  Miss 
Blondin. 

"Entrancing,"  said  Claudia. 

"Such  variety,"  said  Miss  Blondin,  "in  the  de- 
signs. They  get  prettier,  I  think,  with  every  fresh 
batch.  These  came  in  only  last  week.  That  one, 
now.  A  sort  of  Empire  design.  Swans,  you  see,  and 
garlands,  and  laurel  wreaths.  Oh,  no,  'm,  not  really 
difficult.  The  instructions  printed,  you  see,  on  the 
wrapper,  and  quite  easy  to  follow.  Miss  Dousley." 

"Yes,  Miss  Blondin." 

"You  have  the  Swan  design  begun,  I  think.  I 
should  like  to  show  this  lady  ..." 

Miss  Dousley  fetched  the  Swan  design  begun. , 

"We  keep  some  of  these  started,"  Miss  Blondin 
explained  in  parenthesis.  "Now,  Miss  Dousley." 

Miss  Dousley  demonstrated. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  143 

"The  double  loop,  'm,  —  that's  where  you  have 
to  be  careful.  Watch  me.  So,  'm.  The  knot  com- 
pleting the  stitch,  as  it  were." 

"  I  see,"  said  Claudia  —  "or  I  think  I  see.  Yes,  I 
do  see.  May  I  try?" 

She  took  off  her  gloves.  The  rings  sparkled  on  her 
white  hands. 

"Oh,  the  hands  for  the  needlework!"  said  Miss 
Blondin.  "The  hands  for  the  tambour,  or,  better 
still,  the  lace  cushion!  Am  I  not  right,  Miss  Dousley? 
I  yet  hope  to  live  to  see  a  revival  of  lace-making. 
What  more  exquisite  sight  than  the  play  of  the  hands 
on  the  lace  cushion?" 

Ann  was  forgotten;  all  Claudia's  uneasiness. 
Claudia  bought  the  Swan  design,  and  a  design  of 
roses  and  love-knots,  and  one  in  which  arabesques 
entwined  themselves  a  little  incongruously  about 
the  severer  chastities  of  the  Greek  key.  Beguiled 
by  Miss  Blondin  she  bought  a  tambour  frame,  but 
drew  the  line  at  the  lace  cushion  —  if,  indeed,  Miss 
Blondin  had  one  for  sale.  There  was,  to  be  sure,  the 
big  Honiton  cushion  under  its  glass  shade  in  one  of 
the  round  windows,  but  that,  of  course,  was  there  as 
a  symbol  of  the  shop's  intention.  Miss  Blondin  did 
business  in  Windlestone,  it  might  be  said,  At  the 
Sign  of  the  Lace  Cushion. 

"No  wools  or  silks  or  crochet  hooks  to-day,  'm? 
These  tea-cloths  are  pretty.  Yes,  drawn  thread. 
Nor  d'oyleys  for  painting  in  water  colour?  Autumn 


144  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

leaves,  'm,  as  you  see,  and  this  one  a  sprig  of 
myrtle." 

Claudia,  putting  on  her  gloves,  shook  her  head, 
smiling.  "  Not  to-day,  thank  you." 

"Allow  me,  'm." 

It  was  Miss  Dousley,  returning  with  the  bill  and 
her  change,  begging  permission  to  button  her 
gloves.  The  parcel  was  taken  out  to  the  carriage. 

Claudia  rose. 

It  was  then  that  Miss  Blondin,  as  Mr.  Parless 
before  her,  asked  for  Mrs.  Forrester.  She  went  on 
to  speak  of  Redmayne.  Such  a  beautiful  place,  she 
had  always  thought,  when  she  had  been  privileged 
to  see  it.  She  had  been  there  two  or  three  times  in 
connection  with  the  repair  of  some  of  the  old  chair 
covers  and  embroideries.  She  had  been  to  the  Grand 
Bazaar  which  had  been  held  in  the  Grounds  (the 
capitals  unmistakable  in  the  reverence  of  Miss  Blon- 
din's  inflections)  some  years  back  —  in  aid  of  the 
Cottage  Hospital,  that  was  —  and  she  had  been  there 
once  even  as  a  Guest. 

"  But  that  was  on  a  very  sad  occasion  —  the  occa- 
sion of  the  lamented  Mr.  Forrester's  funeral,  when 
I,  in  conjunction  with  one  or  two  others  in  Windle- 
stone  who  had  had  the  honour  of  serving  the  family, 
was  favoured  with  an  invitation." 

It  was  all  perfect  —  all  so  exactly  in  key.  How 
much  she  was  enjoying  herself!  Her  own  becoming 
crapes  and  lawns  made  the  mention  of  a  funeral 
—  and  somehow  of  a  funeral  in  inferred  relation  to 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  145 

its  importance !  —  so  appropriate.  The  talk  was  of 
Ann,  of  the  concerns  of  Ann,  anyway,  but  at  that 
moment  she  had  forgotten  her. 

"Mr.  Coram  will  be  missed,  'm,  will  he  not?" 

Claudia,  who  had  sighed  and  nodded  and  was  now 
at  the  door,  stopped  abruptly. 

"We  were  all  so  sorry  to  hear  he  was  going.  Oh, 
we  all  knew  Mr.  Coram  in  Windlestone.  Off  round 
the  world,  too!  The  Grand  Tour,  as  I  used  to  hear 
it  called  by  old  people  when  I  was  young.  This 
morning,  too!  We  all  hoped  it  might  not  be  so 
soon." 

That  morning !  He  was  gone,  then !  There  seemed 
no  doubt  of  it.  Miss  Blondin  had  heard  even  that  he 
had  nearly  missed  his  train.  Mr.  Bulkley  had  seen 
him  off.  The  platform  waving  to  him.  So  popular 
he  was.  So  beloved  by  every  one.  There  would  be 
sore  hearts,  too,  Miss  Blondin  dared  say!  Such 
a  favourite,  so  to  speak,  with  the  ladies.  But  there, 
Miss  Blondin  must  n't  say  too  much.  Such  a  favour- 
ite with  every  one,  young  and  old.  Half  the  town 
would  have  turned  out  to  see  the  last  of  him  if  the 
hour  of  his  departure  could  have  been  known  in 
time. 

It  was  a  conscience-stricken  Claudia  who  took  her 
seat  once  more  in  the  great  Redmayne  carriage  and 
said,  "Home,"  to  the  waiting  Charles.  Something 
almost  approaching  to  remorse  had  part  in  her 
abounding  dismay.  It  was  as  if,  while  she  had 


I46  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

been  occupying  herself  with  fripperies,  vanities,  idle- 
nesses, things,  and  states  of  mind  of  no  moment  or 
value,  another,  unheeded,  had  been  receiving  a  life- 
sentence  or  a  death-blow.  The  knowledge  that  she 
was  exaggerating,  that  it  was  not,  nor  could  be,  as 
bad  as  all  that,  availed  her  nothing  just  then,  partly 
because  she  was  Claudia  and  had  to  exaggerate,  but 
chiefly  because  of  the  uneasiness  which,  all  through, 
had  underlain  her  selfish  enjoyment.  The  visions  of 
the  two  Anns  returned  to  her  persistently.  The  Ann 
of  last  night,  ghostlike,  wide-eyed,  with  chattering 
teeth,  and  the  Ann  of  the  morning,  beaming,  radi- 
ant, brimming  .  .  .  she  did  not  know  —  or  did  she 
know?  —  which  smote  her  with  the  more  pity.  It 
was  the  thought,  anyway,  of  the  second  Ann,  that 
filled  her  eyes  with  sudden  tears. 

And  the  day  itself  was  changing.  The  unfaltering 
sunshine  had  faltered.  Clouds  had  come  up  from 
nowhere,  and  a  breeze  with  the  chill  of  approaching 
rain  in  it  was  fluttering  her  veils  and  draperies. 


CHAPTER  III 

ANN'S  defences  were  down  —  though  not  wholly 
down  even  yet.  She  had  to  let  Claudia  see,  if,  for 
the  servants,  her  indisposition  could  still  be  called 
a  headache. 

What  it  was  actually  called,  in  the  message  with 
which  Claudia  was  greeted  by  the  solicitous  Whip- 
pie,  was,  of  course,  The  headache.  She  had  gone  to 
her  room  with  it,  it  seemed.  Whipple  thought  that 
the  sun  was  perhaps  the  cause. 

Claudia  closed  on  that  as  Ann  upon  the  third 
magpie. 

"Ah,  yes,"  Claudia  said.  "  Mrs.  Forrester  felt  the 
sun  this  morning  when  she  was  playing  croquet  with 
me.  She  spoke  of  it." 

And  Mrs.  Forrester  had  been  out  in  the  sun 
again  in  the  afternoon.  She  had  been  sitting  in  the 
sun  when  Whipple  had  gone  out  to  tell  her  that  Mr. 
Bulkley  had  called.  Yes,  Mr.  Bulkley  had  called  — 
soon  after  four  that  would  be.  Whipple  had  not 
thought  her  looking  quite  herself  then,  though  noth- 
ing to  notice.  It  was  about  half  an  hour  later  that 
she  had  gone  to  her  room  to  lay  down. 

"Mrs.  Forrester  begged  that  you  would  have  tea 
without  her,  and  hoped,  perhaps,  to  be  well  enough 
to  come  down  for  dinner." 

"Would  she  see  me,  do  you  think?" 


148  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Should  Whipple  ask  Bran  ton? 

Yes,  that  would  be  best. 

Branton  was  on  her  way  down  at  that  very  mo- 
ment. Mrs.  Forrester  had  heard  the  carriage  and 
had  asked  to  see  her.  Would  Mrs.  Nanson  be  kind 
enough  to  step  up  when  she  had  had  her  tea. 
Claudia  wanted  to  '  step  up '  at  once. 

"Mrs.  Forrester  begged  you  would  have  your 
tea  first,  'm." 

Claudia  submitted.  Not  many  minutes  later  she 
was  knocking  at  Ann's  door. 

Yes,  the  defences  were  down,  not  a  doubt  of  that. 
Ann  at  that  moment  was  past  dissembling.  It  said 
something  for  Claudia's  perceptions  that,  in  the 
face  of  the  surrender  that  she  did  see,  she  should 
have  had  even  an  inkling  that  the  surrender  was 
yet  not  complete.  Ann  was  not  crying.  That  fright- 
ened her.  Ann's  eyes  said,  "You  know,  so  I  have  n't 
to  tell  you." 

"You'll  hear  from  him,"  Claudia  said  when  she 
could  speak.  "He  may  have  had  to  go.  It  may  n't 
have  been  possible  to  change  his  plans  at  a  moment's 
notice  ..." 

They  had  been  made  at  a  moment's  notice,  Ann 
was  able  to  remind  her. 

"But  he  had  pledged  himself  to  that,"  Claudi^ 
pleaded.  "He  was  to  hold  himself  ready  —  was  n't 
that  the  understanding?  It  may  have  been  because 
of  that.  He  would  have  had  to  see  his  friend." 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  149 

Ann's  own  argument,  which  she  had  seen  herself 
forced  to  reject. 

"No,  Claudia,  he's  gone.  He  has  n't  gone  just  to 
see  anybody.  He's  gone." 

"He  hasn't  sailed  yet,  anyway,"  Claudia  said 
gently. 

Ann  broke  from  her.  She  had  not  been  lying  down, 
Claudia  saw.  She  could  not  lie  down,  could  not 
surrender  her  driven  body  to  any  one  position.  She 
went  over  to  the  window  and  stood  there  with  her 
back  to  Claudia. 

"He'll  sail  to-morrow,"  she  said  in  a  strangled 
voice.  "He  is  going  to  sail  to-morrow.  He  has  n't 
altered  his  plans.  It's  that.  Last  night  hasn't 
made  any  difference." 

"Did  n't  he  say  anything?"  Claudia  said  at  last. 

"No,"  Ann  said.  "He  didn't  say  anything.  It 
did  n't  even  occur  to  me  that  he  had  n't  said  any- 
thing. And  I  did  n't  say  anything  either.  It  would 
n't  have  occurred  to  me  to  say  anything  about  — 
about  what  I  took  so  entirely  for  granted." 

She  stared  out  of  the  window  drumming  on  the 
pane  with  her  fingers. 

A  full  minute  passed  in  silence. 

The  threatened  rain  was  beginning  now.  Claudia 
saw  it  and  wished  there  might  be  a  thunder-storm 
—  anything  to  break  the  horrid  stillness  in  which 
the  drumming  of  Ann's  fingers  on  the  glass  seemed 
suddenly  to  have  been  going  on  for  hours.  She 
wanted  desperately  to  help  Ann,  but  could  not. 


150  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

This  tense,  bitter  suffering  threw  her  back  upon 
herself.  If  it  had  been  a  weeping  Ann  that  she  had 
had  to  deal  with,  she  would  have  known  what  to 
do.  She  wondered  now  why  Ann  had  sent  for  her. 

Ann  turned  back  from  the  window  blankly. 
Something  in  the  blankness  of  her  face  caught 
Claudia,  as  it  were,  by  the  throat.  It  was  Claudia, 
to  her  own  surprise,  who  burst  into  tears. 

Ann's  arms  were  round  her  in  a  moment. 

Presently  it  was  Ann  who  was  crying,  and  Claudia 
was  just  Claudia  enough  even  then  to  pat  herself 
on  the  back  for  a  cleverness  that  had  been  invol- 
untary. 

"Oh,  Claudia,  I'm  so  unhappy.  I'm  so  horribly 
unhappy." 

Claudia  held  her  close.  Little  by  little  she  grew 
able  to  talk. 

"Nothing  like  this  has  ever  happened  to  me  be- 
fore," was  one  of  the  sentences  that  came  from  her. 
"  I  care  so  dreadfully,"  was  another.  "  Is  caring  for 
some  one  always  as  awful  as  this?"  a  third. 

Claudia  knew  of  such  suffering;  could  understand 
it,  even  if,  as  she  realized  with  a  sort  of  little 
humbled  feeling,  she  was  incapable  of  experiencing 
it  herself.  It  did  not  need  this,  however,  to  tell  her 
that  Ann  was  her  superior  —  had  a  finer  soul  than 
she  would  ever  have  or  even  wish  for.  Claudia  had  t 
no  allusions  about  the  plane  upon  which  she  lived 
and  moved  and  had  her  being.  Fripperies  contented 
her,  but  she  could  appreciate  the  bigger  things  when 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  151 

she  saw  them.  Her  love  of  Ann  at  the  moment 
amounted  to  worship. 

And  she  was  able  to  help  her.  She  helped  her  as 
perhaps  no  one  else  could  have  helped  her  just  then. 
Whatever  Claudia  lacked,  she  had  no  lack  of  the 
rare  sense  we  call  common.  The  need  of  the  mo- 
ment was  respite. 

She  worked  for  respite.  She  fixed  Ann's  thoughts 
upon  the  letter  which  was  still  to  come.  Till  that 
came,  everything  was  conjecture.  If  the  letter  failed, 
she  knew  herself  to  be  done.  But  it  could  not  fail. 
She  had  been  shaken,  it  is  true,  by  the  news  she 
had  heard  in  the  Berlin  Wool  Shop,  but  her  faith 
in  Coram,  which  was  actually  her  faith  in  her  own 
perception,  —  in  what  she  so  truly  believed  herself 
to  have  perceived,  —  had  not  suffered  any  appre- 
ciable damage.  Coram's  letter  would  put  every- 
thing right  even  if  he  should  still  sail  on  the  morrow. 
That  he  might  intend  to  sail  on  the  morrow  had  to 
be  faced.  She  had  to  admit  to  herself,  if  not  to  Ann, 
that  everything  appeared  to  point  to  an  unchanged 
intention  of  sailing  on  the  morrow. 

Till  the  coming  of  the  letter,  then.  To  the  coming 
of  the  letter  .  .  . 

They  got  through  the  evening.  Ann  came  down 
to  dinner,  pale,  frail-looking  even,  but  mistress  once 
more  of  herself.  They  sat  in  the  boudoir  after  din- 
ner and  Claudia  managed  to  induce  Ann  to  play 
b£zique  with  her.  For  a  time  the  game  held  her. 
Disturbing  emotions  were  kept  under  by  Royal  or 


152  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Common  Marriages,  Fours  of  Aces  or  Kings  or 
Queens  or  Knaves,  the  hope  of  Sequence  and 
chance  of  Double  Bezique.  Ann  gasped  for  her 
declarations  when  the  opportunities  of  declaring 
declined  at  the  approach  of  a  last  trick,  or  at  such 
moments  as  demanded  the  sacrifice  of  one  hoarded 
possession  for  another,  and  counted  her  tens  as 
eagerly  as  Claudia.  Up  to  a  point.  Then,  as  with 
the  croquet  that  morning,  her  attention  began  to 
wander. 

At  that  hour,  the  evening  before,  they  had  been 
sitting  out  on  the  terrace  in  front  of  the  drawing- 
room  windows.  She  could  see  Coram's  face  as  the 
light  just  struck  it.  It  came  between  her  and  the 
cards  in  her  hand. 

She  gave  a  little  movement  and  Claudia  looked 
up. 

"I  can't  goon." 

"Yes,  you  can.  And  you're  winning." 

"Oh,  Claudia,  I  can't." 

"Yes,  you  can.  I  tell  you  you're  winning.  Play, 
Ann.  It's  you.  Have  you  taken  a  card?" 

Ann  took  a  card  and  played. 

"  A  Royal  Marriage." 

"You  see,"  said  Claudia. 

"But  I  don't  care,"  said  Ann.  "That's  forty." 
She  marked  it.  "What  does  it  matter?" 

"It  always  matters  to  win,"  said  Claudia.  "At- 
tend, please.  It's  you  again.  Will  you  remember 
to  take  a  card!" 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  153 

"  I  am  attending.  I  can't  attend.  I  don't  know 
what  I  'm  doing,  you  cruel  woman." 

They  played  on  for  a  few  minutes. 

And  Ann  had  such  horribly  good  luck. 

"There.  Sequence!"  said  Claudia.  "Two hundred 
and  fifty.  Have  you  marked  it?  Well,  mark  it.  You 
would  have  missed  that  if  I  'd  allowed  you  to  stop." 

"Taskmistress!"  said  Ann.  "You're  so  hard, 
Claudia.  How  can  you  be  so  hard?" 

"Play,  please,"  said  Claudia. 

And  Ann  would  manage  to  play  again,  and  then 
again  Coram's  face  would  come  between  her  and 
the  cards.  Only  last  night.  A  few  short  hours  ago. 
Where  was  he  now?  What  was  he  doing?  What 
was  he  doing  that  moment! 

"Oh,  Claudia!" 

But  they  were  getting  through  the  evening. 
Claudia's  real  dread  was  for  the  night. 

Tea  was  brought  in  and  made  a  diversion.  Ann 
rose  at  once  to  'make'  it,  but  Claudia  did  not  move, 
and  Ann,  as  if  acting  in  obedience  to  a  command  from 
her  guest,  brought  the  two  cups  to  the  card  table. 

They  played  on.  Claudia  drank  her  tea  and  asked 
for  more.  Ann  left  most  of  hers. 

"What  are  you?"  Ann  asked. 

"Six  hundred  and  twenty?  What  are  you?" 

Ann's  score  was  eight  hundred  and  forty.  No,  she 
had  forgotten  to  mark  ten  for  the  last  trick.  Eight 
hundred  and  fifty. 


154  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Oh,"  she  said, "  if  I  must  win,  can't  we  count  that 
I  have  won?" 

Claudia  was  inexorable.  They  played  the  game  to 
an  end. 

But  when  Ann  was  free  of  it,  she  did  not  seem  very 
sure  of  what  she  wanted  to  do.  She  moved  from  the 
table  where  Claudia  sat  shuffling  (quite  unneces- 
sarily) the  cards  before  (also  quite  unnecessarily) 
putting  them  away  in  their  box.  Claudia,  all  calm- 
ness outwardly,  expected  her  to  go  out  of  the  room, 
but  she  did  not.  She  went  over  to  the  piano.  She 
put  her  fingers  on  the  keys  and  sat  still  for  a  moment 
or  two  without  striking  a  note. 

"Play  something,"  Claudia  said. 

Ann  did  not  move. 

"Chopin,  One  of  the  preludes." 

Ann  shook  her  head. 

"Nonsense,  Ann,  play." 

"Oh,  very  well,"  said  Ann.  But  she  did  not. 
Instead  she  got  up  abruptly  and  went  over  to  one 
of  the  windows  —  the  window  from  behind  the  cur- 
tains of  which  Claudia  had  watched  Coram  ride 
away.  Claudia  thought  of  this  now.  The  thought  of 
it,  the  thought  of  what  she  had  seen,  renewed  her 
faith  that  all  would  be  well.  She  closed  the  bezique 
box,  pushed  it  from  her,  and  went  over  to  Ann  at 
the  window. 

Outside,  the  gardens  were  all  dark.  The  rain 
was  still  falling  —  in  steady  lines  now  —  and  here 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  155 

the  gentle  swish  of  it  on  the  leaves  was  clearly  au- 
dible. Only  as  the  eye  accustomed  itself  to  the  dark- 
ness could  even  the  nearer  features  of  the  landscape 
be  discerned. 

"I'm  glad  it  is  raining,"  Ann  said. 

"A  nice  soft  rain,"  Claudia  said.  "Summer  rain. 
It  will  be  fine  again  to-morrow." 

But  she  knew  what  Ann  meant,  knew  that  the 
night  would  have  been  intolerable  if  it  had  repeated 
the  loveliness  of  the  night  before.  She,  too,  was  glad 
that  it  did  not.  Inwardly,  though  she  was  so  cer- 
tain that  all  would  be  well,  she  knew  that  the  worst 
hour  for  Ann  was  still  to  come.  That  would  be  the 
hour  which  corresponded  to  the  hour  the  night  before, 
which  had  held,  in  the  compass  of  its  sixty  minutes, 
her  great  unhappiness  and  her  great  happiness.  The 
very  passing  of  the  evening,  that  'getting  through' 
upon  the  accomplishment  of  which  she  had  been 
congratulating  herself,  began  to  fill  her  with  ap- 
prehension. 

Ann's  eyes  and  her  own  eyes  glanced  from  time  to 
time  at  the  clock. 

"Tired,  Claudia?" 

"No,  not  a  bit." 

She  was  —  very  tired.  The  strain  was  telling 
upon  her.  But  Ann  was  asking  her  to  watch  with 
her.  She  was  sure  of  it.  She  would  do  that  gladly. 
Not  one  hour,  she  thought.  She  would  sit  up  all 
night  if  need  be. 

"Then  we  won't  go  just  yet,"  Ann  said. 


156  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Yes;  don't  let  us  go  up  yet,"  Claudia  said.  "I 
shan't  want  to  go  for  ages." 

"You 're  sure?" 

"Of  course  I'm  sure." 

"Then  I'll  ring  and  send  word  to  Branton  not  to 
sit  up  for  me." 

The  bell  was  rung,  the  message  given. 

And  the  last  hour  was  the  strangest  of  that  strange 
night.  For  at  half-past  eleven  the  cards  were  taken 
out  again  —  Claudia  had  put  them  away  for  noth- 
ing —  and  the  two  ladies  sat  down  once  more  to 
bezique. 


CHAPTER  IV 

AND  so  at  least  the  back  of  the  night  was  broken. 
It  was  one  o'clock  when  at  length  they  went  up  to 
bed.  By  then  Claudia  knew  herself  to  be  wan  with 
fatigue,  but  that  was  a  price  to  pay  cheerfully  if  the 
answering  signs  of  fatigue  which  she  saw  in  Ann 
promised  sleep.  The  hour  which  was  safely  over 
had  not  been  lived  through  without  wear  and  tear  to 
the  nerves.  She  had  seen  Ann's  hands  tremble,  she 
had  seen  her  eyebrows  contract,  the  eyes  beneath 
them  contracting  also  like  the  eyes  of  one  racked 
by  physical  pain,  —  the  stabbing  pain,  say,  of  neu- 
ralgia, —  and  she  had  seen  the  teeth  set  in  the  reso- 
lution to  endure.  Her  own  support  at  such  moments 
had  been  the  hope  that  the  very  acuteness  of  Ann's 
suffering  would  prove  its  cure.  Worn  out  then  by  the 
sight  of  what  she  felt  herself  powerless  to  alleviate, 
she  had  watched  for  the  signs  of  exhaustion  in  Ann. 
Worn  out,  but  content,  she  had  seen  them.  Then 
she  knew  that  she  might  go  to  bed. 

She  helped  Ann  to  put  out  the  lamps  and  shut  the 
windows,  and  only  when  she  was  alone  for  a  mo- 
ment in  the  hall,  whither  she  had  preceded  her 
to  light  the  bedroom  candles,  did  she  allow  herself 
at  last  the  luxury  of  a  long  and  a  well-earned  yawn. 

Ann,  who  had  stayed  to  shut  the  piano,  joined  her 
and  they  went  up  the  wide  stairs. 


158  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

And  so  to  the  darkness.  It  was  perhaps  Claudia's 
very  real  exhaustion  that  caused  her  last  waking 
thoughts  to  be  chilled  with  what  were  her  first  real 
misgivings.  Suppose  she  had  been  mistaken.  Sup- 
pose she  had  misread  what  she  had  seen.  Sup- 
pose .  .  . 

Not  to  be  thought!  Not  to  be  thought  even  if  she 
had  not  been  too  tired  to  think  at  all.  She  was  thank- 
ful, however,  that  she  was  too  tired  to  think.  She 
fell  asleep. 

And  Ann  in  the  darkness?  Ann  slept,  too. 

And  somewhere  else  in  the  darkness  Timothy 
Coram.  He  perhaps  did  not  sleep?  Or,  perhaps,  he 
also  slept .  .  . 

And  in  the  circle  in  the  wood  all  night  the  soft 
rain  fell  on  the  statue  of  the  waiting  boy  .  .  . 


THE  THIRD  BOOK 


BOOK  THE  THIRD 

CHAPTER  I 

PHARAOH'S  daughter  found  her  adopted  son  in 
the  bulrushes.  We  are  told  so,  anyway,  and  we 
have  no  reason  to  believe  that  she  did  not  —  as  lit- 
tle reason,  indeed,  to  believe  that  she  did  not  as  to 
believe  that  she  arranged  to  find  him  there.  Ann 
found,  or  was  generally  supposed  to  have  found, 
hers  through  an  advertisement. 

The  advertisement  was  in  the  "Times"  for  all 
the  world  to  see.  True  it  had  not  her  complete  name 
to  it  for  reasons  which  we  shall  learn ;  but  Mr.  Par- 
giter,  of  Pargiter  and  Fosberry,  drew  it  up,  and  Par- 
giter  and  Fosberry,  of  Windlestone,  —  the  Georgian 
house  with  the  exceedingly  beautiful  fanlight,  nearly 
opposite  to  Miss  Blondin's,  in  Rochester  Street,  — 
were,  as  every  one  knew,  the  Redmayne  solicitors; 
had  been  the  Redmayne  solicitors  from  what  Mrs. 
Piper,  when  she  had  occasion  to  convey  a  sense  of 
remote  periods,  always  spoke  of  as  "time  in  me- 
moriam." 

It  must  have  been  about  a  year  after  the  night 
when  Claudia  and  Ann  kept  their  vigil  and  played 
bezique  twice  in  one  evening,  that  it  became  known 
that  the  lady  of  Redmayne  was  thinking  of  adopting 
a  child.  Ann  had  been  away  the  greater  part  of  that 


162  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

year.  Nothing  new  in  that.  For  months  at  a  time 
Redmayne  was  accustomed  to  being  dismantled 
and  shut  up,  and  during  Mr.  Forrester's  life  often 
for  longer  than  that.  Ann  had  been  abroad  —  Kis- 
singen  first;  then  Switzerland;  then,  as  the  year  ad- 
vanced and  the  weather  grew  cooler,  the  north  of 
Italy.  Then,  Claudia,  who  had  been  with  her  part 
of  the  time,  joining  her  again  after  a  visit  or  two 
amongst  her  own  relations,  Sicily.  Then  Italy  again. 
Then,  suddenly,  Paris.  After  that,  little  out-of-the- 
way  places  in  France. 

It  was  the  tail-end  of  the  season  when  Ann  got 
back,  and  as,  for  the  few  weeks  that  she  would  be 
in  London  before  she  went  down  to  Redmayne, 
it  did  not  seem  worth  while  to  open  the  house  in 
Charles  Street,  or  bring  up  the  servants,  she  went 
to  a  hotel.  She  went,  as  she  always  went,  when  she 
had  need  of  a  hotel  in  London,  to  the  Bath  Hotel. 
The  Bath  Hotel  stood  where  the  Ritz,  or  rather 
where  a  portion  of  the  Ritz,  was  destined  to  stand  a 
few  decades  later,  and  was  at  the  corner  of  Picca- 
dilly and  Arlington  Street. 

In  Arlington  Street  was  the  Fotheringham's  Lon- 
don house. 

As  Ann  stepped  out  of  the  hotel  on  the  day  after 
her  arrival,  she  met  Lady  Fotheringham,  who  was 
followed  by  a  footman  and  half  a  dozen  dogs  o/ 
various  breeds  and  sizes. 

"Mrs.  Forrester!"  cried  that  lady,  extending  both 
hands  and  seizing,  indeed,  the  two  hands  of  Ann  — 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  163 

or  as  much  of  each  of  them  as  the  handle  of  a  para- 
sol which  Ann  held  in  one,  and  the  purse  which  she 
chanced  to  be  holding  in  the  other,  allowed  her  to 
grasp.  "This  is  delightful.  I'd  no  idea  you  were 
back.  We  never  meet.  I  declare  we  never  meet. 
Are  you  staying  in  London?  Here?  Then  dine  with 
us  to-night.  Only  Flora  Mallard  —  and  come  on  with 
us  to  the  opera.  Say  you  will  and  I  '11  let  you  go  now, 
for  you  're  going  shopping,  I  can  see,  and  I  'm  taking 
my  menagerie  for  a  walk  in  the  Green  Park." 

Ann  said  she  would;  and  so  it  came  that  two  of 
her  neighbours  in  the  country  heard  her  say  that 
the  reason  she  spent  so  little  of  her  time  at  Red- 
mayne  was  that  she  found  the  place  lonely  —  so 
much  so,  indeed,  —  she  paused  and  focussed  at- 
tention, —  so  much  so  that  she  seriously  thought 
sometimes  of  adopting  a  child  for  company. 

"One  can't,"  she  said,  "always  have  people  stay- 
ing with  one.  And  I  have  n't,"  she  added,  shaking 
her  head  at  Lady  Fotheringham,  "your  passion  for 
dogs." 

"There  I  agree  with  you,"  said  Lord  Fothering- 
ham, whose  wife's  menagerie  was  a  standing  griev- 
ance. 

"My  beautiful  dogs!"  cried  Lady  Fotheringham. 
"My  angels!  But  a  child?" 

"A  child?"  echoed  Lady  Mallard.  "Do  you  mean 
a  — child?" 

"A  little  boy  or  a  little  girl,"  said  Ann.  "A  little 
boy  for  choice." 


164  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Lady  Mallard,  whose  growing  daughter,  though 
still  in  the  schoolroom,  was  beginning  to  date  her, 
said:  "My  dear,  you'd  be  bored  to  death.  Nurses, 
nursery-maids!  Think!  And  children  have  illnesses. 
Whooping-coughs,  measles,  chicken-poxes.  Any- 
thing that's  infectious  and  troublesome.  Mabel  has 
had  measles  twice,  though  I  always  used  to  think 
that  was  impossible." 

"And  yet  I  don't  know,"  said  Ann.  "People  do 
adopt  children.  And  I've  always  thought  it  must 
be  rather  interesting  to  watch  a  child  develop." 

"One's  own  child,  perhaps,"  said  Lady  Mallard 
doubtfully. 

"That,  of  course,  would  be  more  interesting,"  said 
Mrs.  Forrester. 

That  was  all  just  then.  Nobody  knew  whether  or 
not  she  was  serious,  though  she  seemed  serious.  The 
allusion  to  dogs  obscured  her  purpose.  A  pet  dog  or 
a  pet  child.  Something  to  keep.  How  could  you 
tell?  Start  a  rumour,  however,  and  it  will  grow  its 
own  wings.  When  some  one  said  to  Claudia  at  a 
party,  "I  hear  Mrs.  Forrester  talks  of  adopting 
a  child,"  Ann  knew  that  this  rumour  had  not  only 
grown  wings,  but  learnt  to  use  them. 

"What  did  you  say?"  she  asked  Claudia  when 
Claudia  told  her. 

"Oh,  that  you  talked  of  so  many  things,"  said 
Claudia,  smiling. 

"We  could  go  down  to  Redmayne  next  week,"  said 
Ann.  The  way,  she  meant,  was  paved. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  165 

They  did  not  go,  however,  till  a  fortnight  later, 
partly  because  Claudia  (in  half  mourning)  was  en- 
joying London  so  much,  and  had  earned  any  grati- 
fication that  Ann  could  give  her,  partly  to  allow  the 
rumour  ample  time  to  reach  Redmayne  itself. 

The  rumour  duly  reached  Redmayne  —  a  week 
before  Redmayne's  mistress.  Mrs.  Piper  heard  it 
from  Whipple,  who  heard  it  from  Fenton,  who  heard 
it  in  the  private  bar  of  the  Lion  and  Goldfish  at 
Fotheringham,  where  he  drank  a  glass  of  beer,  and 
perhaps  two  glasses,  with  Moseley,  one  of  the  game- 
keepers at  the  Court.  Moseley  walked  out  with 
Lady  Fotheringham's  maid. 

"Your  lady,  they  tell  me,  's  looking  out  for  some 
one  to  adopt,"  was  what  Moseley  said.  "  I  says,  'That 
old  tale ! ' "  Fenton  said  to  Whipple  in  recounting  the 
incident;  "for  I  wasn't  going  to  hear  Redmayne 
news  from  Fotheringham  nor  nowhere  else.  Not 
likely !  But  when  I  'd  said  that,  I  let  him  talk.  Some 
conversation  or  the  other  his  Miss  Simson  had  heard 
or  heard  talk  of.  Mrs.  Forrester  asking  Lady  F.  if 
she  knew  of  one  suitable,  from  what  I  made  out. 
If  she  did,  his  lordship,  I  thought  to  meself,  would 
n't  have  been  very  hard  put  to  it  to  find  her  some 
one  —  gentle  birth  and  all,  or  semi  anyway,  eh?  — 
nor,  if  what  they  say  's  true,  his  lordship's  lady 
neither!  Nothing  in  it,  I  s'pose?" 

"Nothing,"  said  Whipple. 

"So  I  thought,"  said  Fenton,  "or  else  Moseley 
he  was  very  circumstahntial." 


166  tTHE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Nothing  in  it?"  Whipple  said  to  Mrs.  Piper. 

"Nothing,"  said  Mrs.  Piper.  "Bringing  their 
gossip  here,  indeed!  As  if  we  should  n't  have 
heard." 

"I  don't  know  how,  though,"  Whipple  said  — 
"who  was  to  tell  us,  I  mean." 

For  Branton  was  gone.  There  was  no  Branton  to 
write  such  Simson  gossip  to  Redmayne.  Branton 
had  not  been  taken  abroad  for  what,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  green  baize  door,  was  considered  the 
rather  inadequate  reason  that  she  spoke  no  foreign 
languages. 

"How  should  we  have  heard  unless  Mrs.  For- 
rester herself  had  written  to  tell  us!" 

"If  it's  true,"  said  Mrs.  Piper,  "she  will  tell  us. 
She'll  tell  me  at  once,  as  you  tell  deaths  to  the  bees. 
But  that  Simson  of  Lady  Fotheringham's  has  made 
it  up  out  of  her  own  head,  you'll  see.  And  that 
Moseley  's  just  as  bad.  Simson,  indeed !  Lady 
Fotheringham  never  did  get  a  good  class  of  lady's- 
maid,  nor  never  will.  You  can  judge  a  maid  by  a 
lady  as  you  can  judge  a  lady  by  her  maid." 

"You  never  liked  Miss  Simson,"  was  what 
Whipple  said  inwardly.  Aloud  he  said  that  Mrs. 
Piper  was  right.  If  there  was  any  truth  in  the  story 
Mrs.  Forrester  would  tell  her  at  once. 

The  house  was  ready  now  for  her  arrival.  On  a 
day  towards  the  end  of  July  she  arrived.  That  very 
evening  it  was  known  that  the  report  was  at  least 
not  without  foundation. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  167 

"Some  of  my  friends  advise  a  little  girl  and  some 
a  little  boy.  Which  do  you  think,  Mrs.  Piper?" 

Mrs.  Piper  said:  "Oh,  a  boy,  'm,  for  choice  and 
for  preference.  To  be  sure,  little  girls  are  very  nice. 
But  a  boy's  a  boy  when  all's  said  and  done." 

That  was  true,  Ann  said.  Still,  a  boy  somehow 
was  more  of  a  responsibility.  But  either  was  a  re- 
sponsibility for  that  matter,  and  the  degrees  of  re- 
sponsibility did  not,  perhaps,  come  into  the  ques- 
tion. Mrs.  Piper's  feeling  was  for  a  boy,  then? 

"Oh,  yes,  'm,  a  boy.  There's  no  comparison,  to 
my  mind,  though  female  myself." 

"Well,  it  is  all  in  the  air,"  said  Mrs.  Forrester. 
"  I  may  think  no  more  of  the  idea,  or  I  may  consider 
it  in  earnest." 

But  that  she  was  thinking  more  of  the  idea  (' '  Such 
nonsense  all  the  same!"  Piper  permitted  herself  to 
call  it,  in  the  extreme  privacy  of  the  room  where 
the  portrait  on  porcelain  stood  on  the  mantelpiece 
facing  the  piano)  was  borne  out  by  the  scraps  of 
conversation  that  were  duly  retailed  behind  the 
green  baize  door. 

"Mrs.  Nanson  she  recommends  a  little  girl," 
Whipple  reported  one  day  —  "says  they  don't  have 
to  go  to  school  like  little  boys  do.  Says  they're 
more  of  companions.  Seemed  to  make  Mrs.  Forres- 
ter laugh  somehow,  that  did." 

"She  has  a  comical  way,  Mrs.  Nanson,"  Mrs. 
Piper  said. 

"Yes.   Maybe.   She  spoke  quite  serious.   A  little 


168  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

girl  with  blue  eyes,  she  said,  and  golden  hair.  Or,  if 
it  must  be  a  boy,  a  little  boy  about  five  years  old. 
Nothing  very  comic  in  that,  I  should  have  said. 
But  you  never  can  tell,  I  don't  know  whether  you've 
noticed,  you  never  can  tell  what  will  make  them 
laugh,  can  you?" 

By  'them'  he  meant  not  his  excellent  mistress 
particularly  —  dining-rooms  generally:  the  incom- 
prehensible people  who  sat  at  a  table  as  against  the 
normal,  balanced,  sensible  persons  whose  duty  it 
was,  dish  or  decanter  in  hand,  to  walk  round  one. 
Yes,  .Mrs.  Piper  had  noticed  that.  They  did  often 
laugh,  in  her  experience  also,  where  no  joke  was. 
t  Not,  she  said,  that  Mrs.  Forrester  was  ever  given 
to  much  laughter. 

Whipple's  mistress,  indeed,  was  graver  than  she 
used  to  be,  as,  if  he  had  been  really  observant, 
Whipple  might  have  observed;  but  she  had  cer- 
tainly laughed  that  day. 

Another  day- Whipple's  announcement  was  that 
Mrs.  Forrester  was  going  to1  advertise  for  what  she 
wanted. 

Mrs.  Piper,  not  really  disapproving  on  the  whole, 
was  a  little  dismayed  at  the  thought  of  an  adver- 
tisement. An  advertisement  seemed  to  threaten 
something  from  goodness  knew  where.  If  Mrs. 
Forrester  really  wished  to  adopt  some  one,  would' 
not  the  right  course  to  pursue  have  been  to  make 
known  her  desire  to  her  friends,  make  enquiries 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  169 

amongst  them,  if  one  or  another  of  them  might 
not,  perhaps,  know  of  some  suitable  and  avail- 
able child?  But  an  advertisement!  Mrs.  Piper  did 
not  even  approve  of  advertisements  as  a  medium 
through  which  to  procure  servants.  Indoor  serv- 
ants, anyway.  Outdoor  servants,  of  course,  were 
different.  You  might  advertise  for  a  groom  or  a 
gardener.  But  even  then  .  .  . 

"Dear,  dear,"  she  exclaimed,  "what  is  it  she 
really  wants?" 

Mr.  Pargiter,  Whipple  said,  had  been  written  to. 

That  relieved  Mrs.  Piper  a  little. 

Mr.  Pargiter  arrived  the  next  day. 

"I  suppose  you'll  think  I'm  mad,"  Ann  said  to 
him  at  the  end  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  talk. 

"Well,  it's  an  experiment,"  said  Mr.  Pargiter,  — 
"an  experiment  certainly." 

That,  said  Mrs.  Forrester,  was  exactly  the  light 
in  which  she  desired  the  matter  to  be  regarded. 

"I  don't  propose  to  bind  myself  till  I  can  see  for 
myself  how  the  experiment  is  likely  to  turn  out.  If 
I  find  a  child  that  I  like  —  that  I  can  care  for  —  I 
propose  to  provide  for  him,  or  for  her,  as  the  case 
may  be.  But  I  don't  mean  to  bind  myself  at  the 
outset.  What  I  want  is  to  find  a  child.  Of  course, 
I  could  go  to  a  workhouse  or  an  orphanage,  but  I 
have  a  bias  in  favour  of  a  well-born  child.  I  have 
often  seen  the  sort  of  advertisement  that  I  want 
you  to  draft  for  me." 


170  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Mr.  Pargiter  drew  a  sheet  of  paper  towards  him. 
She  had  received  him  in  the  library. 

"  The '  Times,'  I  think,"  he  said  —  "  or  the '  Morn- 
ing Post'?" 

"Either.  We  can  see.   Perhaps  both." 

"The  'Times,'  shall  we  say,  to  start  with?" 

"Yes,  the 'Times.'" 

Mr.  Pargiter  unscrewed  his  gold  pencil;  and 
paused. 

"You  have  considered  the  —  er  —  the  possible 
embarrassment  a  child  might  be  to  you'Jn  the  —  the 
event  of  your  wishing  to  —  to  — " 

Mrs.  Forrester  helped  him. 

"To  marry  again?  Yes,  I  have  considered  that, 
and  decided  that  we  need  not  consider  it." 

"Exactly.  Exactly.  You  will,  however,  I  know, 
pardon  me,  if,  before  we  proceed  to  business,  I  re- 
mind you  as  an  old  man,  Mrs.  Forrester,  that  you 
are  a  young  woman,  and  that  —  well,  ladies  have 
been  known  to  change  their  minds." 

Mrs.  Forrester  smiled. 

"  In  every  undertaking  one  must  risk  something," 
she  said.  "I  think  we  will  risk  that  in  this  one.  I 
have  n't,  I  may  say,  any  thought  of  marrying  again, 
or  any  belief  that  I  am  likely  to  change  my  mind. 
You  must  look  upon  this,  Mr.  Pargiter,  as  the  whim 
of  a  woman  who  for  that  reason  sees  the  prospect  of. 
finding  herself  one  day  rather  lonely  —  if,  indeed, 
she  does  not  do  so  already." 

Mr.  Pargiter  bowed. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  171 

"I  am  here  to  take  your  directions,"  he  said. 

"Well,  then,  the  usual  thing.  'A  lady  wishes  to 
adopt,'  and  so  on.  Oh,  you  know  the  sort  of  thing. 
Healthy.  Total  surrender  —  isn't  it  called?  Ref- 
erences. Oh,  yes,  I  suppose  a  boy.  The  age?  Oh, 
well,  anything  up  to  three.  I  lean  myself  towards 
quite  a  young  child  —  a  baby,  in  fact.  But  we  can 


"And  the  answers?"  he  said.  "The  answers,  I 
suppose,  to  Rochester  Street." 

"No;  I  propose  to  put  my  name  to  the  adver- 
tisement and  to  have  the  answers  sent  here." 

Mr.  Pargiter  demurred  to  that.  He  demurred 
very  seriously  to  that.  The  letters  might  run  into 
scores,  fifties,  hundreds  even.  Mrs.  Forrester  did  not 
realize  what  she  might  be  in  for.  Each  inconven- 
ient boy  child  in  the  four  kingdoms  might  be  offered 
to  her.  Every  poor  clerk  with  a  growing  family, 
or  struggling  parson  with  half  a  dozen  clamorous 
mouths  to  feed,  must  be  reckoned  with  as  a  pos- 
sible applicant.  The  governors  of  institutions  even 
might  write. 

"You  don't  know,  Mrs.  Forrester.  Believe  me, 
you  don't  know.  Why,  you  might  even  see  a  pro- 
cession of  mothers  with  their  infants  trailing  across 
the  park." 

That  danger  could  surely  be  met  by  the  way  the 
advertisement  was  worded.  '  By  letter  only,'  — 
some  such  clause.  The  other,  she  supposed,  must  be 
risked  like  the  chance  of  her  changing  her  mind. 


172  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"You  really  mean  that?"  Mr.  Pargiter  said. 

Ann  did,  it  appeared,  really  mean  it.  She  con- 
tinued to  argue.  It  was  possible,  she  said,  that 
she  might  be  overwhelmed  with  applications.  She 
thought  it  improbable,  but  it  was  possible.  They 
would  stick  to  the  'Times,'  therefore,  —  a  three- 
penny paper,  remember,  and  so  less  generally  read 
by  what  was  called  the  million.  The  advertisement 
could  be  as  long  as  Mr.  Pargiter  liked,  and  could 
thus  be  made  to  protect  her  as  far  as  might  be. 

"No;  my  own  name  and  my  own  address.  I  shall 
like  opening  the  letters.  I  shall  do  nothing  rash,  I 
promise  you.  If  the  correspondence  is  more  than  I 
can  cope  with  agreeably,  I  shall  hand  it  over  to  you." 

But  Mr.  Pargiter  demurred  and  continued  to 
demur  so  seriously  to  this  part  of  his  client's  pro- 
posal that  in  the  end  she  agreed  to  a  compromise. 
It  was  settled  that  Ann's  full  name  should  not  ap- 
pear, but  that  replies  should  be  addressed  to  Mrs.  F., 
care  of  Pargiter  and  Fosberry,  of  Windlestone. 

"We  will  forward  them  to  you.  You  shall  have 
the  opening  of  them,  Mrs.  Forrester." 

"I  should  like  that,"  said  Ann,  though  the  arrange- 
ment was  not  quite  what  she  had  intended. 

So  it  came,  since  Mrs.  F.  was  a  sufficiently  trans- 
parent cover,   that  Ann's  world,   at  least,  —  the 
world,  however,  of  a  tolerably  large  visiting  list,  — » 
learnt  that  Mrs.  Forrester  of  Redmayne  did,  in- 
deed, wish  to  adopt  a  child. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  173 

Ann  —  conceding  something  for  expediency,  it 
was  true  —  had  carried  the  advertisement  through. 
Only  Claudia,  frightened,  herself,  sometimes,  in  spite 
of  the  ridiculous  things  which  she  would  say  and 
which  Ann  on  occasion  had  to  rebuke  afterwards 
with  a  "For  goodness'  sake,  Claudia,  don't  overdo 
it,"  —  only  Claudia,  I  say,  knew  what  the  subterfuges 
to  which  Ann  had  seen  herself  driven  cost  her. 


CHAPTER  II 

CLAUDIA  was  amazed  sometimes  —  nay,  was 
amazed  all  the  time.  Often  enough  she  was  sur- 
prised at  herself,  but  then  never  wholly  surprised, 
for  intriguing,  though  she  had  never  intrigued  other 
than  quite  harmlessly,  came  very  naturally  to  her. 
She  was  a  minx,  in  other  words,  but  a  good-hearted 
minx  and  a  very  kind  one.  But  Ann!  No  one  so 
unminxlike  fundamentally  as  Ann.  And  Ann  was 
carrying  things  through  by  such  preparations  and 
foreseeings  and  diplomacies  as  she,  Claudia,  would 
not  have  been  competent  to  conceive  —  Ann  in 
whose  nature  intrigue,  subterfuge,  pretence  of  any 
sort,  had  no  part  or  place !  It  was  amazing  and  more 
than  amazing.  It  was  somehow  admirable. 

Nothing  in  the  strange  year  that  was  over  had 
been  more  wonderful,  perhaps,  than  the  Ann  that 
had  emerged  from  it.  A  new  Ann,  yet  an  Ann  not  so 
much  born  again  as,  herself ,  fruitful ;  not  so  much 
renewed  as  completed,  and,  so,  equipped.  It  was 
her  equipment  at  which  Claudia  marvelled. 

She  had  thought  of  the  advertisement.  She  had 
carried  it  through.  She  would  carry  the  whole  thing 
through.  Claudia  could  claim  no  more  than  to  have 
thought  of  elaborations  —  as,  for  instance,  wheri 
she  had  given  voice  before  Whipple  and  the  footmen 
to  the  "A  little  girl  with  blue  eyes  and  golden  hair, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  175 

or,  if  it  must  be  a  boy,  a  little  boy  about  five  years 
old,"  which,  making  Ann  laugh  in  spite  of  herself, 
had  called  forth  the  admonition,  for  goodness'  sake, 
however,  not  to  'overdo  it.'  Claudia's  elaborations 
were  very  valuable,  but  it  was  Ann  always  who 
thought  in  the  first  instance  of  what  Claudia  per- 
ceived would  bear  to  be  elaborated.  Ann,  it  was,  who 
had  thought  of  the  short  visit  to  Paris,  where  she 
had  got  on  to  the  track  of  the  ultimate  little  un- 
likely French  town. 

In  after  years,  for  both  of  them,  the  year  that  was 
over,  may  have  seemed  and  did  seem  sometimes, 
like  a  bad  dream;  yet,  for  the  achievements  which 
it  saw,  the  mastery  of  difficulty  after  difficulty,  a 
dream  not  wholly  bad.  For  Ann,  amid  its  despera- 
tions, it  held  hours  of  sheer  beauty.  These  compen- 
sated for  much  that  was  even  atrocious.  But  for 
these  Ann  thought  that  she  must  have  given  in.  Yet, 
so  strong  was  the  spirit  of  fight  raised  in  her  by  the 
very  difficulties  which  beset  her,  that  it  is  possi- 
ble that  misery  might  have  accomplished  by  itself 
what  misery,  shot  with  these  gleams  of  unsustained 
but  sustaining  happiness,  did  accomplish.  Ann,  who 
had  never  in  her  life  had  to  fight  for  anything, 
faced  suddenly  and  unexpectedly  with  the  necessity 
for  fighting,  if  not  for  her  life  itself,  for  a  place,  at 
least,  in  the  life  of  her  own  community,  had  devel- 
oped qualities  which  had  not  failed  and  would  not 
fail  her.  There  were  times  when  Claudia  had  not 


I76  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

been  needed,  when  she  could  stand  aside,  as  it  were, 
and  leave  the  battle,  in  the  preparation  for  which  she 
had  assisted  so  loyally,  to  Ann's  unaided  competence. 

"I'll  manage  this,"  Ann  would  say. 

Looking  back,  it  seemed  to  Claudia  sometimes 
that  Ann  had  managed  everything. 

The  fight  was,  of  course,  with  circumstances  — 
not  people;  not  people  yet.  The  fight  was  that  the 
fight  should  not  be  with  people,  that  it  should  never 
be  with  people.  That  was  the  point  of  it  and  its  su- 
preme difficulty.  It  was  a  fight  that  must  not  for  a 
moment  be  seen  to  be  a  fight  at  all.  Never  must  that 
enemy  —  people  as  against  circumstances  —  know, 
or  suspect  itself,  to  be  an  enemy.  The  unconscious 
hostility  of  circumstances  was  formidable  enough. 
The  conscious  hostility  of  people  would  be  ... 
ah,  that  was  a  thought  unthinkable!  From  such  a 
thought  —  from  the  thinking-out  of  such  a  thought 
—  even  the  resolute  Ann  recoiled.  The  world  was 
younger  then,  more  stupid,  perhaps;  the  penalties 
incomparably  greater. 

And  Ann  was  so  wise.  Claudia  had  been  inclined 
to  advise  America — a  continent  as  against '  the  Con- 
tinent,' a  hemisphere  as  against  a  country.  There 
was  much  to  be  said  for  Claudia's  suggestion,  for 
in  those  days  people  did  not  go  backwards  and  for- 
wards between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States. 
Americans  —  more  enterprising  than  the  stay-at-* 
home  English,  came  to  England.  England  went  to 
America,  of  course,  but  had  not  got  into  the  habit 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  177 

of  going  to  America.  Claudia  was  disposed  to  be 
urgent.  France,  the  first  thought,  had  then,  to- 
gether with  Italy,  Switzerland,  and  Germany,  been 
discussed  and  discarded.  Paris.  You  ran  up  against 
people  at  every  turn ;  London  itself  would  be  easier 
to  hide  in.  London,  indeed,  was  discussed.  London, 
after  all,  was  comprised  in  an  area  bounded  by  a 
line  drawn  at  a  three-mile  radius  from  Charing 
Cross.  Outside  that  —  within  that  also  on  one  side, 
at  least,  of  the  river  —  were  whole  districts  unex- 
plored, great  tracts  of  crowded  streets  wherein  the 
foot  of  any  one  to  whom  you  were  known,  or  known 
by  sight  or  by  name,  was  probably  never  set.  But 
London  was  too  near  home  and  was  barred  out. 
Rome?  Not  to  be  taken  into  consideration  at  all. 
Every  one  you  knew  went  there  at  some  time  or 
other.  Capitals  —  since  at  any  moment  at  any  one 
that  you  could  think  of  somebody  was  liable  to  turn 
up  —  capitals  generally  were  ruled  out.  Then  why 
not  America?  There  seemed  nowhere  else  left.  But 
Ann  was  sure  that  it  must  not  be  America.  Could 
not  say  why  exactly,  only  was  sure;  and  said  there 
must  be  places  less  far  afield  —  places  where  you 
could  lie  low,  where  you  would  be  nobody's  business 
but  your  own.  There  must  be  such  places,  even 
though  every  place  which  suggested  itself  had  for 
one  reason  or  another  been  rejected.  Time,  mean- 
while, did  not  stand  still.  Place  after  place,  place 
after  place,  was  mooted,  determined  on  even,  but 
always  eventually  rejected.  It  was  then  that  Ann 


178  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

suddenly  moved.  Something  from  the  beginning 
had  been  left  undone.  That  was  one  of  the  moments 
when  of  her  amazing  confidence  she  said,  " I'll  man- 
age this."  She  meant,  in  this  instance,  that  one  other 
person  must  be  admitted  into  the  secret,  and  would 
arrange  it  for  her. 

Her  first  thought,  France,  had  been  right.  Paris 
itself  had  been  right,  but  not  to  stay  in,  not  to  hide 
in.  Paris  for  that  one  other  person  —  he  should  have 
been  thought  of  long  since!  —  who  must  be  told  as 
much  or  as  little  as  need  be;  but  just  must  be  told. 
The  consulting-room,  when  all  was  said,  was  sacred 
as  the  confessional:  one  person,  of  course,  must  be 
told.  In  that  discovery  she  had  found  wisdom. 
Claudia  admitted  freely  that  she  was  convinced. 

And  having  found  wisdom  she  had  found  not  wis- 
dom only.  She  found  an  understanding  and  a  hu- 
mane as  well  as  a  merely  trustworthy  man.  She 
had  found  —  chanced  upon,  maybe  —  a  fellow  crea- 
ture. She  had  had  an  idea  that  these  things  did  hap- 
pen, were  known  to  happen,  and  that  there  must  be 
recognized  ways  of  dealing  with  them.  Her  instinct 
had  led  her  aright.  The  doctor  asked  no  questions 
—  none,  that  is,  but  such  as  might  help  him  to  advise 
her.  It  was  assumed  that  there  were  reasons  for 
what  was  said  and  what  was  not  said.  Ann  had  no 
duplicities  to  practise  here;  ga  s' an  anger  a  the  key- 
note of  the  interview.  All,  indeed,  in  a  sense  might 
be  said  to  have  arranged  itself  then  and  there.  Ann 
came  away  with  the  name  of  the  little  city  of  refuge 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  179 

whither  in  the  fulness  of  time  she  might  repair,  and 
not  the  name  of  the  place  only,  but  with  a  letter  from 
the  doctor  to  commend  a  patient  —  Mrs.  .  .  .  ?  — 
Mrs.  Vincent  —  to  a  colleague  there,  who  might  be 
relied  upon  to  make  all  arrangements  for  her  re- 
ception and  her  comfort  during  her  stay. 

Ann  had  but  grasped  her  nettle  with  the  usual 
resulting  advantages.  But  the  courage  to  grasp  it 
had  been  there,  and  Claudia  might  indeed  wonder 
and  admire. 

Backwards  and  forwards  over  the  year  the  minds 
of  both  Claudia  and  Ann  must  have  ranged  after- 
wards for  many  a  long  day.  It  may  be  said  at 
once  for  Claudia  that  though  she  had  had  a  shock 
she  had  not  been  'shocked.'  The  knowledge  that 
her  own  grievous  misapprehension  had  precipitated 
the  catastrophe  may  have  helped  her  to  understand 
it.  She  did  understand  it,  and  she  knew  thus  that 
Ann,  in  spite  of  everything,  was  somehow  not  only 
unsullied,  but  in  essentials  was  unchanged,  by  what 
had  befallen  her.  As  her  mind  ranged  over  the  year 
it  was  always  in  the  light  of  'befalling,'  of  'hap- 
pening to,'  of  'overtaking,'  that  she  regarded  the 
catastrophe  in  relation  to  Ann.  Ann  herself  did  not 
regard  it  so  indulgently.  She  had  been  weak  past  all 
denying.  There  were  days  when  she  was  humbled  to 
the  dust.  But  from  such  days  she  uprose  strength- 
ened, steadfast,  and  always  and  always  with  the 
knowledge  that  if  she  had  lost  something  irretriev- 


i8o  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

ably,  she  had  gained  something  else,  something  per- 
haps greater  than  that  which  she  had  lost.  She  had 
such  an  understanding  now  of  life  with  its  contra- 
dictions and  its  myriad  complexities,  such  a  new 
breadth  of  sympathy  and  of  pity,  as  she  could  have 
attained  to,  it  may  be,  in  no  other  way.  Impossible 
that  she  should  view  her  lapse  in  its  results  as  wholly 
evil.  Its  penalties  were  none  the  lighter  for  a  convic- 
tion that  showed  itself  by  degrees  to  be  an  acknowl- 
edgment or  an  acceptance,  but  they  were  certainly 
thereby  made  the  easier  to  face  and  to  take  up  and 
to  bear. 

Goodness!  When  Ann  looked  back  .  .  .  Good- 
ness! When  even  Claudia! 

Timothy's  letter,  which  was  to  have  put  every- 
thing right,  had  arrived,  as  Claudia  had  predicted, 
the  morning  after  the  vigil.  Not  Claudia  herself,  if 
she  had  seen  it  then,  could  have  pretended  to  misun- 
derstand it.  Ann  did  not  misunderstand  it.  It  was 
not  so  much  the  knell  of  her  hopes  as  the  ratification 
of  their  absence.  She  had  had  no  hope.  From  the 
moment  when  she  had  heard  that  it  was  Bulkley 
and  not  Coram  who  was  waiting  for  her  in  the  li- 
brary, she  had  had  no  hope.  Earlier  even  than  that. 
Was  there  not  a  point  in  the  unfinished  game  of 
croquet  that  marked  the  exact  moment,  perhaps, 
when  hope  had  failed  her?  The  lover  rides  away. 
He  loves.  Oh,  yes,  he  loves  —  does  truly  love,  as 
he  knows  love.  The  tears  that  she  had  seen  in  his 
eyes  —  that  to  her  dying  day  she  would  remember 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  181 

that  she  had  seen  in  his  eyes  —  spoke  to  that.  They 
were  in  his  letter,  too,  these  tears,  blinding  her 
own  eyes  with  tears  as  she  read.  He  loves,  but  he 
rides  away.  The  chalice  —  the  pity  and  the  shame 
of  it  were  here  —  the  chalice  not  a  chalice,  but  a 
stirrup  cup!  And,  at  that  even,  a  stirrup  cup,  not 
so  much  in  the  way  that  it  had  been  accepted  (for  it 
had  been  accepted  humbly)  as  in  the  way  that  it  was 
conceived  to  have  been  offered.  The  smart  and  the 
sting  were  there. 

Claudia  did  not  see  the  letter  when  it  came  — 
would  never,  perhaps,  have  seen  it  but  for  what, 
unthought  of  and  unthinkable  even  as  it  was  then, 
was  yet  to  come.  She  saw  it  some  weeks  later.  At 
the  time  she  saw  only  its  effect  on  Ann. 

And  its  effect  on  Ann  was  puzzling.  Ann  was  like 
one  who  has  received  some  secret  wound.  She  said 
to  Claudia:  "It's  finished,  Claudia.  We  won't  talk 
of  it.  I  have  had  the  letter  you  promised  me.  But  I 
wasn't  wrong:  he  is  sailing  to-day."  Little  other 
things  she  said.  "  I  'm  not  blaming  him,  understand 
this.  I'm  just  seeing  that  the  whole  thing  was  a 
mistake  —  that  I  was  mistaken,  I  mean."  "He 
doesn't  know  that  I  was  mistaken.  He  doesn't 
know  that  there  was  any  mistake."  To  these  she 
added:  "  So,  least  of  all,  did  he  know  that  his  letter 
would  show  me  that  there  had  been  a  mistake.  If 
his  letter  had  been  written  to  tell  me  that,  I  don't 
know  what  I  should  have  done.  But  it  was  n't." 

"But  you'll  answer  it,  Ann." 


182  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Yes,  I  shall  answer  it,  but  to  make  it  plain  to 
him  that  there  must  n't  be  any  more." 

"Ann,  are  you  sure  that  —  that  it  is  finished?" 

"I  know  that  it  is." 

"But  you'll  keep  him  as  a  friend." 

Ann  shook  her  head. 

"No;  I  can't  keep  him  as  a  friend." 

There  was  something  behind  all  this.  It  was  evi- 
dent that  to  Ann  the  letter  was  final.  Yet,  though  it 
was  plain  that  it  had  dealt  her  a  blow  the  mark  of 
which,  hidden  though  it  might  be,  she  would,  perhaps, 
carry  through  life,  it  seemed  equally  plain  that  the 
blow  had  been  dealt  unconsciously.  And  something 
else  was  plain  to  Claudia  as  the  days  passed.  The 
letter  which  had  hurt  Ann  so  grievously  had  not 
in  itself  been  such  as  to  disillusion  her  utterly.  It 
seemed,  on  the  contrary,  to  have  given  Ann,  with 
the  pain  which  it  had  inflicted,  some  sort  of  balm 
or  some  sort  of  solace.  Ann  carried  it  for  a  time, 
Claudia  was  sure,  over  her  heart. 

Presently  in  the  sequence  of  events  Ann  seemed 
better,  became,  as  we  say,  more  like  herself.  With 
a  widening  sea,  and  then  a  widening  space  gener- 
ally, between  her  and  the  writer  of  the  letter,  she 
gained  ease.  A  page  was  turned  or  a  door  closed.  She 
volunteered  nothing,  and  Claudia  on  her  part  asked 
nothing.  So  the  early  days  went  by ;  became  weel^. 

Presently  Claudia,  who  by  then  had  paid  a  long 
visit  to  Ann  and  had  judged  her  sufficiently  re- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  183 

covered  now  to  be  left  alone,  broached  the  subject 
of  her  departure.  She  had  relations  to  whom  visits 
must  be  paid.  She  was  able,  as  we  have  learnt,  to 
pay  these  later.  Not  then,  nor  for  a  considerable 
time!  To  her  surprise,  Ann,  whom  she  had  thought 
better,  showed  herself  not  to  be  better  at  all.  She 
met  Claudia's  proposal  with  a  reluctance  to  listen 
to  it  that  had  an  appearance  almost  of  dismay. 
Claudia,  seeing  that  something  was  amiss,  and  con- 
scious in  a  sort  of  retrospective  way  that  she  might 
even  have  observed  that  something  was  amiss,  with- 
drew her  proposal  at  once  with  a  warm,  "Of  course, 
I  won't  go  yet,  dear,  if  you  want  me.  I'll  stay 
with  you  as  long  as  ever  you  like.  I  only  thought, 
as  I  'd  been  here  so  long  .  .  ." 

"I  hadn't  dreamt  of  your  going.  It's  horribly 
dull  for  you,  I  know,  but  I  hoped  you'd  stay  ..." 

Ann  was  in  an  extraordinary  mood.  There  was 
reproach  in  her  words  and  her  tone. 

"Ann,  I  love  being  here.  I  love  being  with  you. 
You  know  I  do." 

"But  you  spoke  of  going?" 

"I'm  not  going.  I  said  I  would  stay  as  long  as 
you  wanted  me." 

"I  do  want  you." 

And  then,  without  in  the  least  understanding 
why,  she  had  a  momentary  but  acute  sense  of  fear. 
And  not  her  own  fear  exactly.  Fear  of  a  fear  that  she 
guessed  at  dimly?  Or  fear,  perhaps,  that  she  did 
guess  at  some  fear?  Fear  very  near  to  her.  Fear  in 


184  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Ann?  Deadly  fear  in  Ann?  The  moment  was  horrible. 
It  passed.    We  know  such  moments  in  nightmare. 

When  it  had  passed  —  it  had  the  quality  of  a  mo- 
ment in  nightmare  in  which  a  lifetime  is  compressed 
into  the  space  between  one  tick  of  the  clock  and  the 
next  —  she  did  not  think  of  it,  could  not,  indeed, 
clearly  recall  it,  but  did  not  forget  it. 

"Was  I  cross?"  Ann  was  saying;  and  Ann  was 
smiling. 

"Cross?" 

"Impatient,  then?  I  didn't  mean  to  be.  I  do 
want  you,  Claudia.  Forgive  me.  I  know  you  '11  for- 
give me.  I  behave  abominably  sometimes,  I  think, 
—  like  a  spoilt  child.  No  one  else  would  put  up  with 
me.  I  've  been  through  something.  It  is  that.  It 's 
all  that  I  don't  want  to  talk  about.  You  made  al- 
lowances for  me  once  before." 

"Ann,  dear,  as  if  I  had  to!  As  if  there  were  any 
occasion!" 

"But  there  is,"  Ann  said.   "Oh,  there  is." 

Claudia  kissed  her. 

"I  love  being  here,"  she  said  again. 

"You  don't  know  what  it  has  been  to  me,"  Ann 
said. 

Another  week  passed.  The  'moment'  did  not 
return  —  did  not  repeat  itself  rather.  But  some- 
how there  was  a  menace.  Ann  was  silent,  brooding. 

And  then  it  became  quite,  quite  plain  that  some- 
thing was  amiss.   And  then  came  the  dreadful 
when  Ann  told  her. 


CHAPTER  III 

KISSINGEN,  whither  they  went  first  and  went  soon, 
was,  as  will  have  been  guessed,  an  excuse  for  the 
unavoidable  parting  with  Branton.  There  was 
otherwise  no  need  for  any  immediate  action.  It  did 
not  matter  where  Ann  went,  would  not  matter  in 
all  probability  for  half  a  year,  or  perhaps  longer. 
One  place  would  do  as  well  as  another,  but  until  the 
days  for  which  thought  would  have  to  be  taken,  a 
place  in  the  world,  as  against  a  place  out  of  it, 
seemed,  perhaps,  advisable — the  main  stream  as 
opposed  to  a  backwater.  Kissingen,  then,  before  the 
wanderings.  Here  the  two  ladies  met  several  friends 
and  acquaintances,  and  Ann  one  of  her  few  relations, 
her  cousin,  Lady  Trent,  who  did  not  think  her  look- 
ing well  and  said  so.  But  Lady  Trent  was  the  sort  of 
person  who  always  said  that  sort  of  thing,  and  Ann 
had  no  real  fear  that  it  would  generally  be  said  that 
she  was  looking  ill.  Fear,  indeed,  for  the  time  being 
was  in  abeyance.  Something  seemed  to  have  hap- 
pened in  the  passing  of  uncertainty  into  certainty, 
or  perhaps  even  in  the  unburdening  of  her  heart  to 
Claudia. 

Claudia  came  to  understand  more  and  more. 
What  she  did  not  yet  understand  was  the  part  the 
statue  had  played  in  what  had  happened.  Perhaps 
Ann,  even,  though  the  statue  was  prominent  in  her 


186  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

story,  did  not  quite  understand  it  either.  What  Ann 
knew,  however,  but  could  not  convey  to  Claudia, 
was  that  but  for  the  waiting  boy  in  the  wood  .  .  . 
Well,  what?  What,  after  all?  She  would  not  have 
fallen  in  love  with  Timothy  Coram?  She  could  not 
say  that,  for  she  could  not  think  it,  knowing  now 
that  she  had  always  been  in  love  with  him.  Would 
not  have  found  out  that  she  was  (and  had  always 
been)  in  love  with  him?  Not  quite  that  either.  She 
would  have  found  that  out  when  she  heard  that  he 
wanted  to  go.  What,  then?  She  thought  that  she 
meant  that,  but  for  the  statue,  her  love  for  him 
would  have  been  on  a  different  plane.  His  form 
would  have  meant  less  to  her  —  the  unnerving 
beauty  of  his  lines.  The  influence  of  the  statue,  of 
the  three  smiling  satyrs,  of  what  she  thought  of 
still  as  the  magic  circle,  was  evil,  then?  She  could 
not  admit  that ;  did  not  even  think  of  it.  What 
she  knew  was  that  the  story  of  her  love  would  have 
been  different,  and  that  she  would  not  (mystery 
was  here)  have  been  in  her  present  desperate  case. 

Claudia  had  not  seen  the  statue.  Ann,  for  some 
reason  which  Claudia  could  not  fathom,  and  which 
Ann  shrank  from  trying  to  fathom  herself,  did  not, 
at  that  time,  anyway,  wish  Claudia  to  see  it.  So 
things  stood. 

Yet  Claudia  understood  how  what  had  happened 
had  happened.    She  felt  sometimes  as  if  she  had 
known  all  along  what  had  happened,  had  known* 
under  her  complete  ignorance,  known  when  she  woke 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  187 

to  find  a  radiant  Ann  by  her  bedside  in  the  dawn, 
and  to  enfold  her  in  her  arms  and  be  enfolded  by 
Ann  in  hers  .  .  .  Earlier  still?  Known  what  would 
happen  when  she  had  sent  the  trembling  Ann  to 
meet  her  lover  in  the  starlit  garden?  Sometimes 
even  that.  Actually,  of  course,  she  had  not  known, 
had  not,  as  we  say,  had  the  remotest  idea,  the  ghost 
of  an  inkling.  And  yet  in  the  fulness  of  her  compre- 
hension it  seemed  to  her  sometimes  as  if  she  must 
have  known,  and  once,  in  the  reflected  glow  of  one 
of  those  supremely  happy  hours,  which,  it  has  been 
said,  did  come  to  Ann  amid  the  welter  of  the  horrors 
which  beset  her,  she  thought  that  if  she  had  verily 
known  she  was  not  sure  that  she  would  have  acted 
differently. 

She  understood  Ann  then,  but  I  fear  me  that  — 
of  her  minxishness,  this !  —  she  did  not  entirely  fail 
to  understand  Coram  also.  Her  eyes  were  wider 
open  than  Ann's .  She  knew  something  of  men,  and 
knew  that,  in  certain  matters,  the  world  asked  less 
of  them,  and  that  what  the  world  asked  the  world 
generally  got.  Men  as  lovers  were  divided  roughly 
into  lovers  and  light  lovers.  Difficult  often  to  tell 
one  from  the  other.  Each  class  comprised  number- 
less grades.  Roughly,  however,  the  division  held. 
Coram  was  neither  and  was  both.  He  served  not 
God  and  Mammon  which  we  are  told  is  impossible, 
but  God  in  a  sense  at  least  —  and  somehow  a  very 
true  sense !  —  and  the  god  of  love.  She  was  con- 
vinced of  the  good  in  him ;  she  divined  also  the  warp- 


188  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

ing,  spoiling  streak.  She  guessed,  though  Ann  had 
not  guessed,  and  perhaps  did  not  even  now,  at  those 
other  persons  in  his  life  —  those  persons  whom  we 
have  come  to  think  of  comprehensively  as  the  Mal- 
lards and  the  Fotheringhams  and  the  Mallingers. 
She  had  nothing  to  go  upon  except  what  she  knew, 
or  thought  she  knew,  of  men,  and  the  light  cast  on 
him  by  his  own  action.  It  may  be  that  a  word 
or  two  of  Miss  Blondin's  took  colour  from  both  and 
gave  colour  in  turn  to  her  conjecture.  "There  will 
be  sore  hearts,"  Miss  Blondin  had  said.  And,  "Such 
a  favourite,  so  to  speak,  with  the  ladies."  And,  "  But 
there,  perhaps  I  must  not  say  too  much!"  Miss 
Blondin,  under  her  air  of  having  stepped  (with  only 
slight  modifications  in  the  process)  out  of  the  pages 
of  "Cranford,"  had,  Claudia  was  sure  of  it,  the 
devil's  own  knowledge  of  the  world  .  .  . 

But  though  Timothy  Coram  had  failed  Ann  and 
in  a  sense  even  betrayed  her,  and  though  he  had  so 
lamentably  caused  Claudia  to  make  her  fatal  mis- 
take, Claudia  did  not  altogether  lose  faith  hi  him. 
His  letter  shattered  Ann's  hopes,  hurt  her  grievously 
by  its  unconsciousness,  but,  as  Claudia  had  sus- 
pected, gave  her  a  sort  of  negative  happiness  even 
in  the  dealing  of  its  blow.  Claudia,  when  Ann 
showed  it  to  her,  —  it  was  necessary  to  the  telling 
of  her  tale,  —  saw  in  a  moment  why.  It  was  a  letter 
which  postulated  light  love,  yet  which  no  real  light 
lover  could  have  written.  It  was  the  letter  of  an 
extraordinarily  '  nice '  man,  whatever  this  nice  man 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  189 

had  done.  But  for  its  takings- for-gran ted,  it  was 
such  a  letter  as  would  have  made  any  woman  happy. 
If  it  was  anything  it  was  a  plea  for  forgiveness.  The 
writer  was  at  his  lady's  feet  and  on  his  knees  at  her 
feet.  She  saw,  as  Ann  saw,  that,  since  he  was  none 
the  less  going,  the  letter  was,  as  Ann  supposed  it, 
'final';  but  she  saw,  as  Ann,  she  gathered,  did  not 
see,  that  he  thought  he  was  meant  to  go.  This  she 
did  not  point  out,  for  it  implied,  at  least  as  Ann 
would  view  it,  a  yet  deadlier  blow  to  Ann's  pride, 
and  Ann's  pride  was  already  reeling.  It  was  doubt- 
ful, at  that  moment  of  abasement,  whether  Ann's 
pride  would  ever  recover  itself,  and  the  whole  future, 
Claudia  saw  clearly,  depended  upon  Ann's  pride. 
Her  courage  would  have  its  root  in  her  pride,  and 
she  would  need  all  her  courage.  Impossible,  there- 
fore, to  do  anything  that  might  have  the  effect  of 
wounding  her  more  deeply  where  she  was  most  vul- 
nerable. Claudia  forbore  then  to  draw  her  atten- 
tion to  what  was  yet  so  manifest  to  herself.  But 
though  Claudia  did  not  dare  to  'speak,'  she  dared 
further.  The  result  of  her  daring  was  nil ;  its  effect 
to  burden  her  with  a  secret  from  Ann.  For  what 
Claudia  had  done  in  the  desperation  of  those  first 
weeks  of  knowledge  was,  upon  her  own  initiative 
and  unknown  to  and  unsuspected  by  Ann,  to  write 
to  Timothy  Coram,  herself. 

The  recollection  of  watching  the  posts  loomed 
very  large  in  Claudia's  memories  of  the  early  months 
of  the  year  —  loomed  larger,  perhaps,  than  the  rec- 


190  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

ollection  of  things  actually  more  memorable.  She 
would  whiten  or  her  heart  would  thump  at  the  sight 
of  letters  lying  on  a  table.  Or  her  heart  would 
thump  or  seem  to  stop  beating  if  any  one  handed 
her  her  letters,  or  if  she  saw  Ann  with  unopened 
letters  in  her  hand  .  .  .  She  learnt  the  hours  of  the 
posts  and  tried  to  forestall  them  —  to  be  there  —  to 
be  'down'  or  to  be  'in*  —  when  they  were  expected. 
She  wondered  that  Ann  did  not  see  her  anxiety,  but 
Ann  with  supreme  anxieties  of  her  own  did  not  ob- 
serve. What  caused  her  still  more  grievous  appre- 
hension was  the  thought  that  a  cable  might  come 
for  her,  and  that  she  might  be  out,  and  that  Ann 
might  open  it,  or,  if  she  were  not  out,  that  Ann 
might  be  present  when  it  was  delivered  to  her.  In 
fairly  propitious  circumstances  a  plausible  explana- 
tion to  fit  the  second  of  these  eventualities  might 
be  counted  upon  not  to  fail  her;  but  in  the  case  of 
the  first  of  them  confession  would  be  unavoidable, 
and  then  —  Heaven  itself  help  her! 

But  as  time  went  on  and  no  answer  came,  her 
apprehensions  on  these  scores  died  down.  She  had 
written  her  letter  to  the  address  given  in  Coram's 
letter  to  Ann,  then  many  weeks  old,  and  she  could 
only  suppose  that,  moving  on  long  since  on  his 
travels,  he  had  not  received  it.  No  letter  came,  no 
telegram,  no  sign.  She  continued  to  watch  the  posts 
to  the  very  last — to  the  time,  that  is,  when  Ann  at. 
length  had  to  seek  the  little  city  of  refuge  where 
arrangements  had  been  made  for  her  welfare  by  the 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  191 

Paris  doctor.  By  then,  however,  and  even  for  some 
time  before  that,  the  risk  of  Ann's  seeing  a  letter  if 
it  should  come  had  vanished,  for,  in  view  of  the  ap- 
proach of  the  day  when  the  concealment  of  identi- 
ties would  become  necessary,  all  letters,  by  arrange- 
ment with  Ann's  bankers  in  Paris,  were  forwarded 
under  cover  to  Claudia  herself,  who  took  little  jour- 
neys to  neighbouring  but  changing  posies  restantes 
to  receive  them.  With  her  anxiety,  died  her  hope. 
Too  late  then,  any  letter  that  might  come;  too  late 
Timothy  Coram  himself,  if  her  letter  should  have 
brought  him.  Too  late,  everything. 

For  a  time  she  worried  herself  about  the  fate  of 
the  letter  itself.  The  Dead  Letter  Office  had  not 
brought  it  back  to  her.  It  was  presumably  still  in 
existence.  She  pictured  it  lying  in  the  letter  rack 
of  some  Western  hotel,  where,  following  in  Coram's 
wake,  it  had  come  to  anchor.  It  was  black  with  re- 
directions. Some  one  had  not  been  at  the  trouble  of 
redirecting  it,  or,  lacking  an  address  to  which  to  for- 
ward it,  was  waiting  instructions,  or  merely  would 
not  be  bothered.  Such  a  one  she  hoped  might  even 
have  destroyed  it.  She  had  no  anxieties  connected 
in  any  way  with  the  chances,  the  probabilities  of  its 
being  read.  The  few  lines  it  contained  would  have 
no  inner  meaning  for  eyes  other  than  those  for 
which  they  had  been  intended.  As  time  went  on, 
she  inclined  more  and  more  to  the  idea  that  prob- 
ably it  had,  indeed,  long  since  been  destroyed,  and, 
occupied  by  so  many  other  distractions,  she  was 


192  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

able  presently  to  banish  the  whole  thing  from  her 
mind. 

And,  with  the  passing  of  time,  and  the  quiet, 
resolute,  successful  surmountings  by  Ann  of  diffi- 
culty after  difficulty,  Coram  had  become  unneces- 
sary. By  the  time  the  advertisement  appeared  in 
the  'Times'  and  every  one  knew  that  Ann  was  look- 
ing out  for  a  child  to  adopt,  he  had  become  negli- 
gible. Coram  just  did  not  matter.  Ann,  if  she  had 
looked  for  vengeance,  which  she  did  not,  must  have 
perceived  "that  in  this  she  was  amply  avenged.  The 
woman  in  the  eternal  conflict  had  vanquished  the 
man.  She  had  shown  that  she  could  do  without  him. 

And  so  to  what  might  have  been  the  greatest 
difficulty  of  all.  But  Ann,  handling  her  preparations 
for  this  resolutely  also,  had  robbed  it  of  its  power. 
The  advertisement  and  the  judicious  dropping  (in 
unpromising  quarters)  of  a  "  You  don't  know  by 
chance  of  a  nice  healthy  child?"  or  an  "I  wish  if 
you  hear  of  anything  you  would  let  me  know," 
proved  all  that  was  necessary  in  the  way  of  prepa- 
ration. Ridiculously  easy  in  the  end  the  accomplish- 
ment of  what  might  have  been  so  difficult.  About 
a  dozen  and  a  half  answers  came,  in  all,  to  her  ad- 
vertisement. Ann,  opening  these  as  they  arrived, 
handed  over  the  greater  number  of  them  at  once  to 
Pargiter  and  Fosberry  to  reply  to  with  polite  de»- 
clinings.  Three  or  four  she  kept  for  a  day  or  two  to 
consider,  but  ultimately  forwarded  to  Windlestone 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  193 

to  be  dealt  with  in  the  same  way.  With  the  writers 
of  two  —  one  from  London  and  one  from  near  Lon- 
don —  she  caused  appointments  to  be  made.  There 
remained  one  other.  Then,  with  Claudia,  she  went 
up  once  more  to  the  Bath  Hotel,  whence  presently 
she  wrote  letters.  One  of  these  was  to  Mr.  Pargiter. 
The  Clapham  child  would  not  do  at  all.  She  made 
no  further  comment  on  the  Clapham  child.  The 
Finsbury  Park  little  boy  was  entirely  desirable,  but 
had  parents,  who,  though  stress  of  circumstances 
had  induced  them  to  answer  a  tempting  advertise- 
ment, were  obviously  reluctant  to  part  with  him. 
She  would  not  have  had  the  heart  to  persuade  them 
to  give  him  up,  and,  when  she  did  not  attempt  to  do 
so,  their  relief  had  been  touching.  (We  may  guess, 
with  or  without  Mr.  Pargiter,  that  she  found  a  way 
of  helping  them  to  keep  this  little  family  circle 
unbroken.)  So  far,  then,  her  journey  to  London  had 
been  fruitless.  She  would  wait  to  see  one  other  child 
about  whom  she  had  written. 

And  it  was  this  child,  the  child  about  whom  she 
had  written  herself,  that  she  and  Claudia  brought 
back  with  them,  together  with  an  elderly  nurse 
(Claudia's  find)  and  a  young  nursery-maid  (the 
elderly  nurse's),  a  fortnight  later  to  Redmayne. 
There  had  been,  Mr.  Pargiter  learned,  no  arrange- 
ment to  make.  Ann  had  seen  the  child  and  had 
fallen  in  love  with  it.  A  foster  mother,  who  had  dis- 
closed enough  of  its  history  to  her  to  satisfy  her  that 
it  was  at  least  probably  of  the  gentle  birth  to  which 


194  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

the  advertisement  had  stipulated,  had  handed  it 
over  to  her,  and  that  was  all  about  it. 

It  was  then  that  Mr.  Pargiter,  who  had  been 
frowning  for  some  days  and  had  frowned  still  more 
over  the  letter  that  gave  him  the  details  of  what 
he  saw  he  was  to  regard  now  in  the  light  of  a  fait 
accompli,  smiled  and  (there  being  none  to  see) 
smiled  again  and  again  smiled.  Mrs.  Forrester 
knew  more,  he  fancied,  than  she  chose  to  disclose. 
He  realized  her  suddenly  for  a  very  clever  woman. 
Some  one  was  being  sheltered.  He  smelt  a  rat,  in 
other  words.  But  he,  like  the  monumental  author  of 
the  most  famous,  probably,  of  all  the  mixed  meta- 
phors that  have  ever  been  perpetrated,  had,  as 
perhaps  he  knew  then  already,  seen  it  "hovering  in 
the  air."  It  was  happily  not  his  business  to  "  nip 
it  in  the  bud."  It  was  happily  nobody's  business. 
Why  had  his  client  wished  her  name  to  appear  in 
the  advertisement?  Why  an  advertisement  at  all? 
Some  one  was  being  very  ingeniously  sheltered.  It 
was  quite,  quite  plain  to  him.  She  was  not  only 
a  very  clever  woman,  but  a  very,  very  kind  one. 

It  would  have  amused  Claudia  far  more,  it  is  to 
be  feared,  than  it  would  have  horrified  her,  if  she 
could  have  known  whom  it  was  that  Mr.  Pargiter, 
jumping  to  his  conclusion,  as  she  had  once  jumped 
to  a  conclusion  of  her  own,  supposed  to  be  in  the 
position  of  being  sheltered ! 

So  much  for  downcast  eyes,  and  the  willow  worn 
with  an  air. 


CHAPTER  IV 

BUT  if  Mr.  Pargiter  smiled,  he  smiled  only  to 
himself.  He  would  not  have  smiled  to  the  wife  of 
his  bosom  in  the  sanctuary  of  his  own  home.  He 
would  not  have  smiled  even  to  Mr.  Fosberry,  — 
though  if  Mr.  Fosberry  senior,  his  old  partner  and 
his  own  contemporary,  had  been  living,  it  is  just 
possible  that,  under  the  seal  of  —  well,  the  profes- 
sional —  shall  we  say?  —  he  might  have  permitted 
himself  the  flicker  of  a  smile  for  that  gentleman's 
shrewd  and  understanding  eye.  He  would  have  seared 
his  lips  with  fire  rather  than  have  let  them  show  the 
ghost  of  such  a  smile  to  Ann  or  to  the  suspected 
Claudia  herself.  He  just  smiled  to  himself,  and  no 
one  else  smiled  at  all.  No,  not  another  soul  smiled. 

Always,  of  course,  in  the  sense  of  which  we  are 
speaking,  for,  in  every  other,  the  newcomer  was 
received  with  nothing  but  smiles  —  rapturous  smiles 
which,  engaging  little  rogue  that  he  was,  he  won  for 
himself. 

Ann  said  more  than  once,  "I  might  have  wished 
to  find  some  one  a  little  older — two  would  have  been 
the  ideal  age  —  but  when  I  saw  him  ..." 

His  name?  Every  one,  of  course,  asked  what  his 
name  was,  but  Ann  was  prepared  for  that. 

"I  shall  probably  give  him  my  own  name  later 
on,"  she  said.  "He  is  called  Johnny  Smith.  I  don't 


196  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

suppose  for  a  moment  that  that  is  his  name.  I  had 
to  take  him  without  too  many  questions  or  not  take 
him  at  all.  I  took  him." 

And  since  it  was  nobody's  business  to  question, 
or  even  to  ask  questions,  Ann  was  spared  what 
might  have  proved  embarrassing,  if  not,  indeed, 
harassing,  and  had  no  more  to  cope  with  than  nat- 
ural curiosity. 

Extraordinary  how  easily  everything  went !  Clau- 
dia looked  on  with  a  sort  of  sustained  wonder. 
Nothing  was  going  to  happen.  What,  after  all,  could 
have  been  expected  to  happen?  Yet  that  nothing 
should  happen!  Presently  it  became  plain  that  in 
all  probability  nothing  ever  would  happen.  Johnny 
Smith,  in  other  words,  was  accepted. 

And  so  life  settled  back  into  its  old  grooves,  or, 
more  accurately  speaking,  slid  smoothly  on  to  its 
new  lines.  There  was  no  commotion.  In  a  house  of 
the  size  of  Redmayne  the  apportioning-off  of  a  suite 
of  rooms  to  Master  Johnny  and  his  staff  was  not  a 
matter  that  occasioned  re-distributions,  or  even  any 
disturbance  of  the  existing  order.  Mrs.  Piper  en- 
tered with  enthusiasm  into  the  carrying-out  of  what 
arrangements  were  necessary,  and  with  her  coopera- 
tion the  arrangements  made  themselves.  Friction 
was  not  a  condition  of  things  that  had  to  be  reckoned 
with  in  those  days.  Orders  were  given  and  orders 
were  obeyed.  But  then  as  now  there  were  at  least, 
currents  and  undercurrents,  which  would  make  their 
presence  felt  through  any  green  baize  door.  And 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  197 

Ann  would  have  known,. we  may  be1  sure,  if  that 
which  showed  an  unruffled  surface  had  inwardly 
been  troubled. 

All  was  unbroken  calm.  Johnny  was  not  ac- 
cepted only,  but  welcomed.  "A  little  child  shall 
lead  them."  It  was  as  if  a  little  child  could  be 
counted  upon  to  lead  you.  It  was  as  if  a  little  child 
had  always  been  what  Redmayne,  complete  in  every 
other  particular,  had  lacked.  It  was  as  if  Johnny, 
in  his  cradle,  or  his  perambulator,  or  the  arms  of  his 
adoring  attendants,  had  been  the  little  child  that 
Redmayne  had  always  lacked. 

Ann  allowed  herself  now  to  be,  if  not  happy,  at 
least  not  unhappy.  In  Johnny  himself  she  was  en- 
tirely happy.  The  hours  that  she  looked  forward  to 
were  the  hours  which  she  spent  in  the  nursery;  the 
hours  for  which  she  planned  and  plotted  were  the 
rare  hours  in  which,  by  half-hours,  perhaps,  she 
could  have  him  to  herself.  Poulton,  who  had  been 
Claudia's  own  nurse,  and  who  had  been  induced  to 
come  out  of  her  retirement  in  Ann's  and  the  little 
Johnny's  interests,  would  be  told  to  bring  her  charge 
down  and  to  leave  him,  and  fetch  him  again  at  such 
and  such  a  time  by  the  clock.  Then  Ann  could  let 
herself  go,  and  perhaps  she  did.  But  she  never  for- 
got that  it  was  upon  the  exact  degree  of  her  self-con- 
trol that  her  happiness  depended.  She  had  no  real 
fear  that  she  would  betray  herself.  She  had  gone 
through  too  severe  a  discipline  for  that.  It  was  her 
intention  to  be  content  with  as  much  as  she  had. 


198  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

And  she  had  so  much.  In  those  half-hours  she  knew 
that  she  had  everything  that  really  mattered. 

Yes,  Johnny  Smith  was  accepted.  By  the  face- 
tious he  was  called  'Tommy  Jones,'  of  course,  or 
'The  Foundling,'  or  'Mrs.  Forrester's  Foundling'; 
and  Redmayne  itself  was  called  'The  Foundling 
Hospital.'  These  pleasantries  were  to  be  expected. 
They  had  no  significance.  They  flickered  out  like 
ineffectual  fires.  There  was  a  nine  days'  wonder  and 
the  wonder  died  down.  Ann  would  send  for  Johnny 
to  show  him  to  visitors  or  would  not  send  for  him. 
People  asked  for  him  as  they  asked  for  any  other 
child  in  any  other  house. 

Lady  Mallard  said:  "Well,  perhaps  I  was  wrong. 
Perhaps,  in  spite  of  the  anxiety  they  are,  there  is 
something  about  children  that  makes  them  worth 
while.  They  do  certainly  wind  themselves  round 
one's  heart.  I  think,  perhaps,  you  were  wise." 

"I'm  quite  sure  I  was  wise,"  Ann  said.  "I 
would  n't  be  without  him  now  for  anything.  I  don't 
think  I  knew  before  what  I  missed  —  what  every 
childless  woman  misses." 

"You  would  have  liked  him  for  your  own?" 

"  I  mean  to  make  him  my  own." 

Lady  Mallard  kissed  her. 

Lady  Fotheringham  said,  "No;  I  quite  see  now 
that  a  dog  would  n't  have  done  as  well."  t 

Ann  addressed  her  protest  to  Johnny. 

"They  insist,"  she  said,  smiling  —  "they  insist 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  199 

on  regarding  you  just  as  a  pet.  But  you're  going 
to  be  much  more  than  that  to  me,  are  n't  you,  my 
darling?" 

"He's  a  very  lucky  little  boy,"  Lady  Fothering- 
ham  said. 

Everybody  said  that  sooner  or  later.  Every  one 
thought  it.  Ann  could  not  quite  think  it,  but  she  was 
content  to  hear  it  said.  It  made  for  security —  was 
a  sort  of  earnest  of  her  security,  and  even  his.  She 
meant  to  make  up  to  him  for  everything  —  to  make 
up  to  him,  as  far  as  lay  in  her  power,  for  the  wrong 
that  had  been  done  him. 

Her  first  thought  was  to  provide  for  him.  She 
could  do  that  generously  without  injury  to  any  one. 
Redmayne  itself  with  its  rent-roll  would  go  at  her 
death  to  a  cousin  of  her  husband,  but  all  else  was 
her  own  to  do  as  she  liked  with.  Mr.  Pargiter  was 
sent  for  and  she  made  the  will  which  hitherto,  de- 
spite all  that  he  could  say,  she  had  put  off  making. 
With  no  one  near  to  her  or  with  any  claim  upon  her, 
she  had  really  been  indifferent  as  to  what  became  of 
her  possessions.  But  she  knew  her  own  mind  now 
and  gave  her  instructions  very  clearly.  Under  this 
will  Claudia  also  benefited  —  which  may,  perhaps, 
have  occasioned  Mr.  Pargiter  some  wonder;  un- 
der it,  Claudia,  in  the  event  of  the  testator's  death 
during  Johnny's  minority,  was  appointed  Johnny's 
sole  guardian  —  which  occasioned  the  good  Mr.  Par- 
giter none.  Not  many  days  before  all  was  in  order 
—  signed,  sealed,  witnessed. 


200  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Then  Mr.  Pargiter  said,  "You'll  let  me  say  that 
he  is  a  very  lucky  little  boy." 

"I  think  myself  rather  a  fortunate  woman, "  said 
Ann. 

Mr.  Pargiter  thought  to  himself  that  he  knew 
another  very  fortunate  woman.  But  it  was  none  of 
his  business.  Everything  in  the  end  worked  round 
to  that. 

Claudia  now  left  Ann  for  some  visits  to  her  rela- 
tions. She  had  made  no  plans  yet  for  her  own  future, 
and  Ann  urged  her  to  make  her  home  permanently 
with  her.  Claudia  still  clung  to  the  idea,  which  she 
had  brought  home  with  her  from  India,  of  a  little 
house  of  her  own  somewhere  with  a  rose  du  Barry 
drawing-room  and  a  yellow  dining-room ;  always  a 
yellow  dining-room.  But  there  was  no  immediate 
hurry  about  that.  She  was  coming  back,  and  again 
she  promised  to  stay  with  Ann  as  long  as  Ann  should 
have  need  of  her. 

"That  will  be  always,"  Ann  said. 

She  saw  her  off  at  Whitcombe  and  thought  of  the 
day  when  she  had  gone  there  to  meet  her.  A  lifetime 
seemed  to  have  passed  since  then.  She  remembered 
Claudia's  ridiculous  but  also  delicious  little  affecta- 
tions, and  because  they  meant  so  little  and  so  much 
loved  her  for  them.  The  recollection  of  them  showed 
her  what  Claudia  had  actually  done  for  her.  She* 
had  stood  by  her  when  there  would  have  been  every 
excuse  for  standing  aside.  She  had  stood  by  her 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  201 

when  a  standing-aside,  howsoever  excusable,  how- 
soever justified  even,  would  have  plunged  her  into 
despair.  She  had  helped  her  as  no  other  of  her 
friends,  perhaps,  would  have  helped  her  or  could 
have  helped  her.  Not  a  reproach  nor  a  protest  had 
come  from  her,  not  a  hint  that  too  much  was  asked 
of  her  —  that  anything  was  being  asked  of  her. 
Claudia",  may  have  wondered  at  what  she  thought 
of  as  Ann's  wonderfulness ;  assuredly  Ann  wondered 
at  the  wonderfulness  of  Claudia. 

The  November  day  was  very  different  from  that 
day  of  summer  when  Claudia  had  gone  through  her 
little  pantomime  and  the  carriage  had  cleaved  a 
way  for  itself  through  the  midst  of  a  flock  of  sheep. 
Mists  were  hanging  over  the  fields.  The  distant 
hills  were  blotted  out.  The  woods,  green  then,  but 
now,  if  they  could  have  been  seen,  a  patchwork  of 
beautiful  colours,  were  shrouded.  Dampness  every- 
where; the  roads  and  the  banks  running  water,  the 
hedges  and  the  trees  adrip.  A  day  for  indoors  and 
the  fireside. 

Ann  thought  of  the  statue.  She  had  not  been  near 
it  since  the  day  when  she  had  seen  Timothy  Coram 
in  the  circle  with  the  magpie  in  his  arms.  But  she 
could  not  bear  to  think  of  it  —  could  not  bear  to 
think  of  the  stone  which  she  always  thought  of 
as  warm  —  though  for  so  short  a  time  could  it  be 
really  warm  —  chilled,  as  it  must  be  to-day,  wet, 
desolate.  She  shivered  and  turned  her  thoughts 
to  Johnny.  But  they  went  back  and  back  to  the 


202  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

boy  waiting  in  the  dreary  loneliness  of  the  soaked 
wood  .  .  . 

Presently  she  found  that  her  heart  was  aching. 
It  was  as  if  it  had  been  aching  for  a  long  time  — 
aching,  perhaps,  all  along  —  and  she  had  just  be- 
come aware  of  it.  Was  it  that  with  Johnny  secured 
to  her,  and  her  purpose  thus  achieved,  she  had,  as 
it  were,  time  to  think  of  herself?  While  Johnny, 
unborn  or  born,  had  been  to  fight  for,  nothing  else 
had  had  any  existence  for  her.  But  no,  no,  no! 
She  would  not  think  of  Timothy  Coram.  She  would 
not.  She  heard  his  name,  of  course,  from  time  to 
time.  People  spoke  of  him  —  asked  for  him,  asked 
news  of  him,  or  asked  if  she  had  news  of  him.  She 
had  a  formula  for  such  occasions.  She  had  not  heard 
lately,  was  what  she  said ;  or  she  had  not  heard  for 
ages;  or  her  last  news  of  him  was  from  Mr.  Bulkley. 
He  was  in  this  part  of  the  world  or  that.  He  did  not 
speak  yet  of  coming  home  to  England.  It  was,  per- 
haps, the  dread  of  hearing  of  him  that  had  caused  her, 
since  her  return  to  Redmayne,  to  put  off  and  to  put 
off  the  resumption  of  any  active  part  in  the  con- 
trol of  the  affairs  of  the  property.  She  could  answer 
questions  without  thinking  of  him.  But  she  could 
not  hear  news  of  him  without  thinking  of  him.  It 
was  as  if,  under  whatever  else  had  been  occupying 
her  mind  in  the  year  and  a  half  that  had  passed 
since  she  had  seen  him,  she  had  never  ceased  tQ 
think  of  him.  Had  she,  as  she  had  believed,  suc- 
ceeded in  rooting  him  out  of  her  life?  Or  had  she 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  203 

only  succeeded  in  rooting  herself  out  of  his?  She 
had  silenced  him  effectually  with  the  one  letter  she 
had  written  to  him  in  answer  to  his  own:  a  letter 
in  which  she  had  made  it  clear  —  so  unmistakably 
clear  that  one,  indeed,  who  ran  might  have  read!  — 
that  that  which  in  a  sense  had  never  been  begun  was 
ended.  She  had  left  him  to  find  explanations  which 
she  could  not  —  but  also  could  only  too  well !  — 
have  supplied,  and  she  could  guess  easily  enough  at 
the  explanations  which  would  naturally  occur  to  him. 
But  now  she  knew  suddenly  that  deep  down  in  her 
heart,  where  the  dull  aching  had  never  really  ceased, 
she  had  known  all  along  that  for  his  part  also  there 
was  an  explanation  if  only  she  could  have  guessed  it. 
And  as  this  knowledge  came  to  her,  this  knowledge 
of  a  knowledge  that  she  had  had,  so  to  say,  unawares, 
she  began  to  visualize  him  —  to  make  images  of 
him  as  on  that  day  when  she  had  filled  the  library 
with  images  of  him.  Not  one  of  the  images  that  came 
before  her  now  but  spoke  for  the  existence  of  some- 
thing which  would  have  made  comprehensible  what 
as  yet  was  beyond  her  understanding.  She  could 
have  forgiven  the  blow  to  her  pride  if  she  could  have 
understood  how  the  blow  came  to  have  been  dealt: 
no,  if  she  could  have  understood  how  the  blow  came 
to  have  been  unintentional,  came  not  to  have  been 
perceived  even  to  be  a  blow.  To  understand  was  to 
forgive.  But  to  forgive  postulated  to  understand. 
To  forgive  without  understanding,  was  that  what 
was  being  asked  of  her?  Not  quite  that.  To  believe 


204  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

(as  she  did  believe)  that  there  was  something  which 
would  make  all  understandable  and  so  to  forgive  by 
faith. 

Who  asked  this  of  her?  The  images  crowded  upon 
her.  Timothy  in  the  library  unable  to  tell  her  that 
he  wanted  to  go.  Timothy  trying  to  tell  her.  She 
had  had  to  help  him.  Timothy,  though  he  wanted 
to  go,  half  hoping  that  she  would  refuse  to  let  him 
go,  to  hear  of  his  going.  His  reluctance  so  unques- 
tionable. Small  wonder  if  she  had  been  misled! 
And,  persistently,  Timothy  with  the  bird  in  his  arms 
—  with  the  bird  in  his  arms  by  the  statue  in  the 
circle  .  .  . 

Claudia!  She  found  herself  wishing  vehemently 
that  she  had  Claudia  back  with  her.  She  had  an  idea 
now  that  Claudia  partly,  at  least,  understood  — 
had  understood  from  the  beginning.  Claudia  had 
made  the  great  mistake  of  all  —  the  mistake  which 
had  precipitated  the  catastrophe  —  and  for  that  rea- 
son had  felt  that  any  further  meddling  was  barred  to 
her.  She  had  said  nothing.  But  Ann  felt  that  even 
yet  she  cherished  some  sort  of  belief  in  Coram,  that 
though  she  held  no  brief  for  him  she  conceived  some 
sort  of  a  defence  for  him,  or  believed  some  sort  of 
a  defence  for  him  to  be  possible.  Ah,  if  she  herself 
could  but  think  that!  If  she  could  but  think  that 
there  were  anything  to  be  said  for  him  —  anything 
to  show  that  her  trust  in  him  had  not  been  entirely 
misplaced. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  205 

But  she  did  think  it. 

She  had  just  found  out  that  she  knew  it,  that 
she  had  always  known  it. 

The  carriage  turned  in  at  the  lodge  gates.  Pres- 
ently she  was  at  home.  She  wore  the  look  which 
Charles,  describing  it  once  to  Mrs.  Piper  and  Whip- 
pie,  had  spoken  of  as  expressing  an  "Oh,  is  the 
drive  over?"  or  a  "  Do  I  live  here?"  air  of  preoc- 
cupation or  blankness.  This  time,  however,  Charles 
did  not  observe  her  looks  or  her  manner.  He  was 
busy  with  the  heavy  fur  rugs  of  winter  as  against 
the  mere  dust  rugs  of  summer,  or  was  not  in  an  ob- 
servant mood. 

Ann  went  up  mechanically  to  her  room  and 
submitted  to  the  ministrations  of  Z61ie,  the  last  of 
Branton's  successors.  She  went  then  to  the  library 
where  Johnny  was  brought  to  her. 

This  was  one  of  the  days  when  she  dared  not  let 
herself  go.  It  was  part  of  the  burden  she  had  to  bear 
that  she  could  not  wholly  let  herself  go.  She  must 
not  cry.  Only  in  the  night,  when  there  was  none  to 
see  tears  or  the  traces  of  tears,  might  she  cry.  But 
she  might  strain  her  son  to  her  bosom  and  whisper 
to  him  what  she  would.  She  unpacked  her  heart  now 
in  less  than  a  dozen  words.  They  held  all  there  was 
to  say. 

"I'm  so  unhappy,  Johnny!  I'm  so  desperately 
unhappy!" 

It  was  what  she  had  said  to  Claudia  in  the  early 


206  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

days.  It  was  what  she  had  said  before  the  horror  of 
fear  and  of  dismay  had  fallen  upon  her.  That  hor- 
ror had  passed.  She  had  fought  that  horror  down, 
had  had  the  strength  or  perhaps  been  given,  been 
granted  even,  the  strength  to  battle  with  her  diffi- 
culties and  to  overcome  them.  She  had  thought 
herself  happy,  or  at  least  not  unhappy.  She  was 
back  with  the  unhappiness  of  the  earliest  days  of 
all. 

What  did  it  mean? 

But  she  had  no  need  to  tell  herself  what  it  meant. 
She  knew  only  too  well  what  it  meant.  Nothing 
was  altered.  For  all  her  suffering,  perhaps  even 
because  of  it,  she  loved  Coram  still. 


CHAPTER  V 

AND  so  another  stage  was  reached. 

Ann  was  conscious  of  a  change  in  herself  or  her 
attitude.  As  she  had  avoided  hearing  of  Coram, 
avoided  Bulkley  even  for  fear  of  hearing  of  him,  so 
now  she  began  to  long  for  news  of  him.  She  asked 
Bulkley  to  luncheon  and  led  the  talk  to  Coram. 
Coram  was  in  Ceylon.  His  friend,  whose  name 
Ann  would  not  remember  and  never  forgot,  had  left 
him  to  come  home. 

"And  Mr.  Coram?"  Ann  said.  "Does  he  speak 
of  coming  home?" 

"Not  of  coming  home,  but  of  wishing  to  come 
home." 

"Wishing  to  come  home?"  Ann  said. 

"I  think  he's  had  enough  of  travelling,"  said 
Bulkley. 

"Does  he  say  so?" 

"He  hasn't  exactly  said  so.  I  think  he  has, 
all  the  same.  I  have  thought  so  from  the  tone  of 
his  last  two  or  three  letters.  I  Ve  sometimes  won- 
dered ..."  He  broke  off. 

"Wondered  what?"  asked  Ann. 

"Whether  he  does  n't  regret  having  gone  at  all." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"He  was  so  anxious  to  travel,"  Ann  said  when 
the  silence  had  lasted  some  seconds. 


208  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"While  he  could  n't  go,"  Bulkley  said  quickly. 
"I  think  he  shrank  from  the  thought  of  going  from 
the  moment  when  he  found  that  he  could  go.  I 
think  to  the  last  he  half  hoped  something  would 
happen  to  prevent,  or  anyway  delay,  his  going.  In 
the  end  I  think  he  would  have  given  his  right  hand 
not  to  go." 

Ann  heard  herself  say,  "Really?"  It  was  as  if 
some  one  else  spoke.  Yet  was  this  also  one  of  the 
things  she  had  always  known?  Her  heart  was  beat- 
ing fast. 

"He  knew  he  would  be  homesick,"  she  said.  "He 
told  me  so." 

"He  is  homesick.  That's  what's  the  matter  with 
him.  That's  what  has  been  the  matter  with  him  all 
the  time." 

Again  Ann's  heart  leapt.  He  was  not  happy.  Use- 
less to  pretend  to  herself  that  she  was  not  relieved, 
glad  even.  In  that  moment  she  learnt  another  of 
love's  secrets.  She  could  bear  her  own  unhappiness 
if  she  knew  that  he  was  not  happy  either.  On  that, 
shrinking  a  little  from  what  it  seemed  to  imply,  she 
paused,  turning  the  conversation  to  other  matters. 

But  under  whatever  they  talked  of,  Ann  was 
conscious  of  a  feeling  of  exultation.  "He  isn't 
happy  either,"  she  said  to  herself.  "He  is  n't  happy 
either."  Was  it  that  she  wished  him  unhappy?  She 
did  not.  She  wished  him  such  wishes  as  a  wife 
might  wish  for  her  husband,  or  a  mother  for  her 
child,  or  a  lover  for  a  lover.  But  she  was  unhappy 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  209 

for  him.  If  she  could  know  that  he  was  unhappy  for 
her  .  .  .  and  she  had  learnt  that  he  was  not  happy .  . . 

Bulkley  might  have  observed  that  at  some  point 
her  spirits  rose.  They  did  rise.  A  weight  seemed  to 
have  been  lifted  off  her  heart. 

Bulkley  asked  for  Johnny. 

"The  jolliest  little  chap,"  he"said.  "I  often  meet 
him  in  his  perambulator  about  the  place." 

"Poulton  says  he  knows  you  quite  well.  She 
speaks  of  you  as  the  gentleman  he  always  has  a 
smile  for." 

"Yes,  we're  great  friends,"  said  Bulkley. 

Ann  asked  him  if  he  liked  children. 

He  shook  his  head,  smiling. 

"But  I  love  Johnny,"  he  said. 

And  then  he  said  something  that  caused  Ann  an 
emotion  which,  taking  her  unexpectedly,  she  found 
difficulty  to  repress  or  even  to  control. 

"  It  was  Coram  who  had  the  wonderful  way  with 
children,"  he  said.  "I've  never  seen  any  one  like 
him.  He  could  even  hold  a  baby  —  he  would,  too. 
And  they  came  to  him;  held  out  their  arms  to  him. 
I  used  to  chaff  him  about  it  —  tell  him  that  was  how 
he  managed  the  tenants.  But  it  was  n't.  It  was 
just  natural  to  him.  He  loved  children  and  they 
loved  him.  He  ought  to  marry.  I've  always  told 
him  so.  There's  a  father  lost  in  him  —  wasted." 

Long  after  Mr.  Bulkley  had  gone,  the  new  image 
that  he  had  called  up  before  Ann  haunted  her. 


2io  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

The  substance  of  what  he  had  told  her  was  not 
new  to  her.  She  had  heard  often  enough  from  the 
wives  of  the  tenants,  or  of  the  labourers  on  the  estate, 
of  Coram's  popularity  with  their  children.  But  the 
image  which  his  words  had  invoked  was  wholly  new. 
Chance  phrases  he  had  used  cut  her  like  a  knife,  but 
gave  her  a  sort  of  poignant  happiness.  "He  could 
even  hold  a  baby  —  he  would,  too."  Something 
about  the  '  could '  and  the '  would.'  ' '  And  they  came 
to  him  —  held  out  their  arms  to  him."  Their  small- 
ness,  his  bigness;  their  weakness,  his  strength.  For 
the  image  of  Coram  with  the  bird  held  to  him  she 
had  the  new  image  of  Coram  with  a  child  in  his 
arms.  But  not  just  a  child.  The  child  she  saw  in 
his  arms,  the  child  that  she  could  see  so  plainly,  was 
his  son  and  hers  .  .  . 

"I  can't  bear  it,"  she  said  to  herself,  but  she 
did  not  know  whether  her  eyes  were  brimming  for 
pain  or  for  ecstasy.  "  I  can't  bear  any  more." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THEN  nature  protested. 

Perhaps  Ann  herself  did  not  realize  what  she  had 
been  through.  Perhaps  Johnny's  need  of  her  and 
her  own  need  of  Johnny  had  kept  her  going.  From 
the  end  of  November  to  the  beginning  of  February 
she  was  ill  —  part  of  the  time  seriously  ill.  Claudia 
hurried  back  from  her  visits.  Redmayne  became  the 
Redmayne  of  the  last  few  months  of  Mr.  Forres- 
ter's life.  Nurses  were  in  the  house.  The  doctor's 
carriage  would  wait  at  the  door,  or  be  seen  moving 
up  and  down  the  drive,  the  pacing  horse  turned  by 
the  methodical  coachman  always  at  the  same  spot. 
Clockwork  might  have  regulated  the  movements  of 
the  doctor's  carriage.  Whipple  and  his  satellites 
answered  enquiries.  Mrs.  Forrester  was  about  the 
same.  Mrs.  Forrester  was  just  about  the  same. 
Mrs.  Forrester  had  had  a  restless  night  and  was  not 
quite  so  well.  Mrs.  Forrester  seemed  a  little  easier. 
No,  Mrs.  Forrester  did  not  seem  to  suffer.  A  sort 
of  nervous  breakdown.  The  illness  had  begun  with 
a  chill,  the  result  of  a  walk  in  damp  woods.  Thin 
soles,  Whipple  said,  on  wet  grass.  Nothing,  so  it 
had  been  thought  at  first,  to  signify.  But  Mrs. 
Forrester  had  not  picked  up  as  she  should.  She  had 
not,  Whipple  thought,  been  quite  the  thing  for  a 
long  time  —  going  on  for  two  years  Whipple  thought 


212  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

—  and  the  chill,  so  to  speak,  had  settled  on  her 
nerves. 

Ann,  In  all  her  lassitude,  might  have  been  amused 
if  she  had  heard.  Claudia,  if  she  had  heard,  would 
certainly  have  been  amused,  her  anxieties  notwith- 
standing. She  treasured  a  word  of  Mrs.  Piper's 
which  she  did  hear  —  hugged  it,  hugged  herself; 
retailed  it  ultimately  to  Ann  on  one  of  her  good 
days,  and  was  rewarded  with  one  of  the  invalid's 
rare  smiles.  Mrs.  Piper  said,  "A  chill,  and  then,  the 
nervous  system  being  run  down,  complifications." 

1  Complifications' !  The  word  served  as  well  as  an- 
other for  a  disorder  for  which  no  name  was  authori- 
tatively forthcoming.  Claudia  wondered  sometimes 
whether  Dr.  Harborough  guessed.  She  had  passed 
through  the  ordeal  of  her  share  of  his  questionings 
fairly  satisfactorily.  She  had  been  away  when  Mrs. 
Forrester  was  taken  ill.  She  knew  of  no  shock  that 
she  had  lately  sustained  to  account  for  her  con- 
dition. The  servants,  she  gathered,  knew  of  none. 
Mrs.  Forrester  had  apparently  been  in  her  usual 
health  till  the  day  when  she  caught  cold.  One  could 
not  think  of  any  troubles  that  Mrs.  Forrester  would 
be  likely  to  have.  Certainly  no  money  troubles. 
Her  loneliness  Claudia  thought  did  sometimes 
depress  her.  Few  people  were  so  alone  in  the  world 
as  she.  She  had  hardly  a  relation  living,  and  since 
the  death  of  Mr.  Forrester  she  had  lived,  Claudia 
thought,  too  much  by  herself.  She  was  not  the  sorf 
of  person  who  could  fill  her  life  with  mere  social 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  213 

activities,  though  from  time  to  time  she  might  take 
part  in  them.  The  adopting  of  Johnny  appeared 
to  show  that  Mrs.  Forrester  did  feel  her  loneliness. 

Dr.  Harborough  had  said  "Ah"  to  that.  He  had 
not  looked  at  Claudia  as  he  said  it.  He  waited  for  a 
moment  or  two,  as  if  on  the  chance  that  Claudia 
would  say  more.  She  did  not.  The  pause  seemed  to 
her  an  appreciable  pause,  but  that  may  have  been 
so  only  in  her  imagination.  She,  like  Ann  herself, 
was  well  schooled — too  well  schooled  to  flounder 
or  even  to  attempt  to  fill  it.  Ah,  well,  rest,  Dr. 
Harborough  said,  was  what  Mrs.  Forrester  needed ; 
rest  and,  by  degrees,  the  cheerful  occupation  of  her 
mind.  There  was  nothing  organically  wrong.  The 
disorder  was  mental  —  spiritual,  he  would  almost 
like  to  say  —  rather  than  physical.  It  was  possible, 
he  would  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  it  was  probable, 
that  the  causes  might  be  traced  back  across  the 
years  to  what  she  had  gone  through  at  the  time  of 
her  husband's  illness  and  death.  A  breakdown  of 
this  sort  was  sometimes  postponed.  In  the  ordinary 
course  he  should  certainly  have  looked  for  causes 
nearer  at  hand,  some  recent  stress  or  strain,  but  as 
there  seemed  to  have  been  nothing  of  the  kind  .  .  . 

Did  he  guess?  Claudia  could  not  tell.  She  did  not 
feel,  indeed,  that  it  mattered  very  much  if  he  did. 
He  did  not  question  her  about  the  time  Ann  had 
spent  abroad.  It  was  significant,  perhaps,  that  he 
did  not.  It  was  a  relief  to  her  that  he  did  not  think 
it  necessary  to  call  in  a  second  opinion. 


214  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"You  know  her  constitution,"  Claudia  said. 
"You  have  attended  her  before." 

"Never  for  anything  like  this,"  Dr.  Harborough 
said. 

Yet  he  did  not  press  Claudia  —  subject  her  to  any 
exhaustive  questioning.  She  fancied,  but  may  only 
have  fancied,  that  he  saw  reasons  why  a  second 
opinion  was  to  be  avoided  if  possible.  It  was,  how- 
ever, happily  quite  plain  to  her  that,  as  he  had  said, 
he  did  not  think  a  second  opinion  necessary. 

"  I  believe  he  guesses,"  she  said  to  herself.  "  Per- 
haps he  even  knows." 

But  she  could  never  be  quite  sure. 

Ann  lay  inert,  uninterested,  weak,  inexpressibly 
tired.  She  lay  awake,  or  she  slept  and  woke  unre- 
freshed.  There  were  days  when,  though  it  was  an 
effort  to  her  to  move,  she  could  not  lie  still. 

"I  am  so  tired,"  she  said  to  Claudia.  "I'm  so 
dreadfully  tired." 

1 '  Rest,"  Claudia  whispered  back.  ' '  Rest.  You  Ve 
to  do  nothing  but  lie  here  and  rest." 

"Resting  does  n't  rest  me,"  Ann  said. 

One  day  when  they  were  alone  Claudia  took  it 
upon  her  to  speak.  She  chose  her  moment.  The 
night  nurse  was  off  duty.  Claudia,  coming  in  to  sit 
with  the  patient,  had  sent  the  day  nurse  to  have  her 
tea  with  Mrs.  Piper.  Not  the  alert,  highly  trained, 
educated,  experienced,  open-eyed  young  women  of 
these  days,  with  the  devil's  own  knowledge  of  nerves 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  215 

and  nervous  maladies  and  complexities  generally, 
or  Claudia  might,  indeed,  have  trembled  for  Ann's 
secret  —  really  have  felt  the  apprehension  at  which 
she  intended  in  the  interests  of  Ann's  health  to  hint. 
Ann's  nurses  were  stolid,  unimaginative,  comfort- 
able women  who  did  their  work  competently  enough, 
taking  their  directions  from  the  doctor,  accepting 
his  pronouncements,  and  very  little  likely  to  attempt 
any  diagnoses  on  their  own  account.  They  came 
from  the  neighbourhood  —  one  from  the  County 
Hospital  at  Windlestone,  the  other  from  the  Cot- 
tage Hospital  at  Fotheringham.  Redmayne  was 
Redmayne.  They  had  known  Redmayne  all  their 
lives.  Mrs.  Forrester  was  Mrs.  Forrester.  If  they 
hazarded  any  conjectures  as  to  the  nature  or  the 
causes  of  her  illness,  childlessness  Was  far  more  likely 
to  have  occurred  to  them  as  an  explanation  of  it,  and 
of  her  state  generally,  than  any  vaguest  suspicion 
of  the  truth.  Claudia  was  not  really  afraid.  But  Ann 
must  be  roused.  January  was  drawing  to  a  close. 
Ann  had  been  ill  eight  weeks.  Claudia,  to  whom 
a  crooked  way  —  slightly,  harmlessly  crooked  — 
came  naturally  enough,  could  be  direct  when  she 
chose.  As  she  had  been  direct  on  the  night  when 
Ann's  face  had  been  ghostlike  and  her  teeth  had 
chattered,  so  was  she  direct  now.  No  beatings  about 
the  bush  for  Claudia  when  she  had  made  up  her 
mind  to  a  course  of  action. 

"I  want  a  little  talk  with  you,  Ann  Forrester," 
she  said. 


216  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Ann  turned  wearied  eyes  upon  her. 

"I'm  going  to  be  rather  blunt,  and,  as  you  may 
think  it,  just  a  little  bit  cruel." 

Ann  said  nothing,  but  the  eyes  opened  a  little 
wider. 

"Don't  imagine  that  I  don't  know  what  you've 
been  suffering.  I  know  only  too  well.  You  've  been 
very  ill,  but  the  time  has  come  when  you  Ve  got  to 
get  well,  and  I  am  going  to  tell  you  why." 

"Got  to  get  well?" 

Ann's  lips  formed  the  words.  She  hardly  spoke 
them. 

"Got  to  get  well,"  Claudia  repeated.  "Yes,  I 
mean  that.  You've  got  to  get  well.  You  needn't 
look  at  me  reproachfully.  You  needn't  pretend  that 
it  is  n't  in  your  own  power.  It  is.  You  're  not  try- 
ing. You  go  on  from  day  to  day.  You  are  just  not 
trying.  Can  you  look  me  in  the  face  and  deny  it?  " 

Ann's  eyes  slowly  filled  with  tears. 

"Oh,  my  goodness,"  Claudia  said,  addressing  an 
imaginary  witness,  "if  she  does  that  I  shan't  be  able 
to  go  on!  But  I  am  going  on.  She'll  be  grateful  to 
me  afterwards.  —  You  Ve  got  to  rouse  yourself. 
You've  got  to  make  an  effort.  You've  got  to  be 
interested  again  in  life  —  in  things  outside  a  sick- 
room. You've  got  to  wish  to  get  well." 

"It's  horrible  of  you,  Claudia.  After  all  I  Ve  gone 
through." 

"  It 's  because  of  what  you  Ve  gone  through.   It 's  * 
because  of  your  courage.    Not  one  woman  in  fifty 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  217 

could  have  faced  what  you  Ve  faced  without  flinch- 
ing, and  not  one  in  a  hundred  could  have  carried 
through  what  you've  carried  through.  Oh,  don't 
think  that  I'm  surprised  that  you  are  ill.  I  don't 
know  how  you've  held  out.  I  do  not  know,  Ann. 
You've  taught  me  a  lesson  of  endurance  that  I  .shall 
remember  all  my  life.  Surprised!  You've  earned 
your  illness"  '• —  Claudia  paused  to  smile  —  "you've 
earned  your  illness  beyond  all  question.  You've 
every  right  to  be  ill.  But  you  have  n't  every  right, 
or  any  right,  to  jeopardize  Johnny's  well-being  and 
your  own  and  the  well-being  of  every  one  con- 
nected with  you." 

"What  do  you  mean,  Claudia?" 

"Think,  Ann." 

Ann  may  or  may  not  have  thought.  She  appealed 
to  Claudia  again. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean.  It's  no  good 
saying  I  am  to  think.  You'll  have  to  tell  me." 

"Very  well,"  said  Claudia,  "I'll  tell  you.  Every 
day  that  you  go  on  being  ill  is  a  menace  to  Johnny 
and  what  you  have  achieved  for  him,  and  what  you 
have  achieved  for"  —  she  paused  —  "for  all  of  us. 
Nobody  lives  to  himself.  (I  'm  not  preaching.  I  'm 
stating  a  fact.)  We're  all  involved  in  this.  Red- 
mayne  itself.  Even  —  let  me  say  this,  Ann !  —  even 
your  husband.  The  servants,  the  people  on  the 
estate.  The  tradesmen  who  serve  you  —  people, 
even,  like  Miss  Blondin  at  the  Berlin  Wool  Shop. 
They  look  up  to  Redmayne,  these  people.  They 


218  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

have  to  go  on  looking  up  to  it.  There  are  places 
that  they  don't  look  up  to.  Fotheringham  is  one. 
Never  mind  how  I  know.  Perhaps  I  talk  to  Mrs. 
Piper  sometimes.  Perhaps  I  should  guess  without 
that  —  though  nobody  could  help  liking  the  lady 
herself.  There  are  others  —  one  other,  anyway  — 
that  even  you  might  put  a  name  to,  though  I  know 
you  never  see  evil  anywhere  nor  believe  harm  of  any 
one.  I  don't  see  why  I  should  n't  say  Cloistron, 
though  I  won't  say  Cloistron  definitely,  for  I  don't 
like  Lady  Mallard  and  I  may  be  prejudiced.  (Non- 
sense, Ann,  we  're  within  four  walls.)  But  Redmayne 
is  different.  It  is  different.  And  you  are  different. 
And  what  you  have  done  —  I'm  not  making  light 
of  the  Commandments  —  is  entirely  different.  In 
my  heart  I  can't  help  feeling  that  it  is  because  it  is 
so  different  that  you  have  been  allowed  —  no,  I  be- 
lieve you  have  been  helped  —  to  come  out  of  it  all 
un —  un —  oh,  what  is  the  word  I  want?" 

"Don't  say  unpunished,"  Ann  murmured. 

"I  was  n't  going  to  say  unpunished.  I  was  go- 
ing to  say  unvanquished,  I  think — unbeaten.  It's 
more  than  that  really:  unscathed.  You've  come 
out  of  it  all  clean  —  the  biggest  thing  of  all.  But 
that,  all  the  same,  is  not  the  point.  The  point  is 
that  you've  won,  and  that  your  illness,  if  you  go  on 
being  ill,  threatens  all  that  you've  fought  for." 

She  stopped,  flushed,  a  little  breathless.  It  was 
for  Ann  to  speak  now.  But  Ann  did  not  speak.  Sha 
lay  quite  still. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  219 

Claudia  let  a  few  moments  pass  and  returned  to 
the  attack.  She  must  make  her  meaning  plainer,  it 
seemed.  So  be  it. 

"Ann,"  she  said. 

Ann  turned  her  eyes  in  Claudia's  direction. 

"Listen  to  me.  You  are  in  the  hands  of  nurses; 
does  n't  that  suggest  anything  to  you?  —  any  risk? 
—  any  danger?" 

Claudia  waited,  but  Ann  also  waited. 

"They've  only  got  to  begin  to  wonder,"  Claudia 
said. 

Ann  did  not  move  or  speak. 

"Nurses,  remember.  They  know  something  of 
illnesses.  And  they  are  women." 

Silence.   Ann  gave  no  sign  that  she  had  heard. 

"You  go  on  from  day  to  day.  They  have  only  got 
to  think  of  your  illness  as  mysterious.  The  word 
'mysterious'  has  only  got  to  be  applied  to  it." 

Still  silence.   Claudia  could  be  very  patient. 

"And  to  get  about  —  applied  to  it." 

She  waited  again. 

"Mysterious  illnesses  generally  have  unusual 
causes." 

Sibnce.  She  had  not  known  that  Ann  could  be 
so  obdurate. 

"Very  well.  Can  we  afford,  here,  —  you,  Johnny, 
all  of  us,  —  to  let  people  begin  to  look  about  for 
causes ;  to  wonder  even  ...  to  ask  themselves  where 
you  were"  —  she  gathered  herself  up  to  strike  — 
"from  November,  say,  of  the  year  before  last  to  the 


220  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

time  when  you  turned  up  at  the  Bath  Hotel  in 
London?"  She  bent  over  Ann.  " To  remember  the 
advertisement?"  Ann's  eyes  met  hers.  "To  begin 
to  put  together  the  pieces  of  the  puzzle  —  to  know 
that  there  is  a  puzzle  to  put  together?  If  ever  they 
do  begin  —  if  ever  they  suspect  that  there  is  any- 
thing to  suspect — " 

She  broke  off.  Ann  had  given  a  little  cry.  Claudia 
relaxed.  She  sank  back.  Her  task  was  done.  She 
watched  Ann  weep.  She  let  her  weep. 

Presently  she  began  to  relent. 

"I  did  n't  mean  to  frighten  you,"  she  said,  but 
she  knew  that  she  had  had  no  other  intention. 
Ann  wept  on. 

"  I  can't  help  it,"  Claudia  said  to  herself.  "  It  was 
the  only  thing  to  do." 

Poor  Ann.  After  all,  she  was  ill. 

"What  a  brute  I  am!"  Claudia  thought. 

"Ann,  Ann,  darling." 

And  then  she  was  soothing  her  as  you  soothe  a 
frightened  child. 

"Ann,  dearest,  it's  all  right.  Nobody  suspects. 
Nobody  dreams.  Nobody.  Not  a  soul.  It's  all 
right,  Ann,  dear.  It's  all,  all  right."  Then:  "And 
it's  always  going  to  be  all  right.  I  feel  this.  I 
know  it." 

Then,  with  her  arms  round  her:  "You're  going 
to.  You're  going  to,  are  n't  you?  You're  going  to 
begin  to  get  well  to-day." 

A  little  pause. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  221 

"Are  n't  you?" 

Ann's  sobs  were  lessening. 

"Promise?" 

Ann  caught  her  breath,  sobbed  again;  but  in  the 
end  she  nodded. 

"There's  my  good  Ann.  Now  I'm  going  to  give 
you  your  medicine  and  then  I'm  going  to  read  to 
you.  Yes,  I  am.  'The  Ingoldsby  Legends.'  Now, 
Ann!  You  don't  want  to  get  me  into  trouble,  do 
you?  I've  made  you  cry.  If  that  comes  out  I  shall 
never  be  allowed  to  sit  with  you  again.  Very  well, 
then,  —  'The  Jackdaw  of  Rheims.'  When  nurse 
comes  back  from  her  tea,  I  want  her  to  find  you 
laughing." 

"If  I  laugh  I  may  cry,"  Ann  warned  her.  Was  it 
an  admission? 

"No,  no,"  Claudia  said,  "you're  not  an  hysterical 
subject." 

"You've  been  telling  me  that  I  am,"  Ann  an- 
swered. "What  else  have  you  been  drumming  into 
me  for  the  last  twenty  minutes?  Why  else  have  you 
been  bullying  me?" 

"I  believe,"  Claudia  said,  —  "I  do  really  believe 
that  you're  nearly  as  clever  as  I  am." 


CHAPTER  VII 

IN  February  Ann  went  to  Brighton  for  change  of 
air,  Claudia  went  with  her.  There  was  some  talk 
of  taking  Johnny.  Ann  was  for  taking  him,  but 
wiser  counsels  prevailing  (Claudia's),  Johnny  re- 
mained with  his  nurses  at  Redmayne,  where,  as 
Claudia  pointed  out,  his  presence  and  theirs  —  to 
say  nothing  of  his  existence,  which  elsewhere  would 
have  still  to  be  accounted  for  —  had  ceased  long 
since  to  attract  any  attention  whatever.  Whether 
or  not  the  unthreatened  continuance  of  conditions 
so  desirable  was,  indeed,  due  to  Ann's  timely  re- 
covery, —  as  engineered  by  the  shrewd  and  far- 
sighted  Claudia!  —  it  is  certain  that,  as  Ann  did 
begin  to  recover  from  the  day  when  Claudia  had 
spoken,  so  did  she  pay  increasing  regard  to  Claudia's 
admonitions  or  advice.  Claudia  saw  this,  we  may  be 
sure,  but  never  presumed  upon  it. 

"Take  him  about  with  you  when  he  is  five,"  she 
said,  —  "the  age,  as  I  have  always  told  you,  which 
people  expect  an  adopted  child  to  be.  Your  friends 
have  swallowed  him  whole,  baby  as  he  is,  but 
strangers,  people  in  hotels,  might  n't  find  him  so 
easy  to  digest." 

Ann  said,  "Hush,  Claudia,"  though  there  was  no 
one  to  hear,  but  laid  Claudia's  wisdom  to  heart.  * 

"Besides,"  Claudia  allowed  herself  to  say,  though 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  223 

her  point  was  gained,  "it  would  be  inexpedient,  at 
least,  to  let  it  be  thought  that  you  could  n't  bear 
to  be  parted  from  him." 

Ann  said,  "I  can't  bear  to  be  parted  from  him." 

"All  the  more  reason  why  you  should  be,"  said 
Claudia. 

Brighton,  then,  for  Ann's  recovery.  At  first  she 
went  out  in  a  Bath  chair.  Daily  at  eleven  o'clock 
her  Bath  chair  would  come  round  to  the  hotel  door. 
Ann  would  appear,  followed  by  Zelie  with  her  rugs 
and  her  cushions  and  Claudia  with  the  "Morning 
Post,"  and  Ann  would  take  her  constitutional, 
Claudia  walking  beside  her.  Ann  looked  so  much 
better  now,  that  there  was  no  fear  that  the  word 
'mysterious'  would  be  applied  to  an  illness  which 
was  obviously  over.  Claudia  enjoyed  the  interested 
looks  which  never  failed  to  be  turned  upon  them 
as  the  chair  made  its  slow  progress  along  the  front. 
Ann  was  still  a  little  pale,  but  no  longer  looked  as  if 
she  had  been  (as  Claudia  put  it  to  herself)  'through' 
anything.  She  might  safely  now  take  as  long  as  she 
liked  over  her  convalescence. 

On  very  sunny  mornings,  when  the  day,  wind 
notwithstanding,  was  said  to  be  warm  enough  to 
allow  you  to  sit  out,  the  Bath  chair  would  be  drawn 
up  in  a  more  or  less  sheltered  spot,  and  Claudia 
would  sit  on  a  penny  chair  beside  it.  Then,  while 
the  Bath  chair  man,  a  few  yards  off,  but  always 
within  hail,  smoked  a  furtive  pipe  as  he  leant  against 
a  lamp-post,  the  two  ladies  would  read  the  paper, 


224  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

dividing  it  between  them,  wrestling  with  the  flutter- 
ing sheets  and  presently,  or  even  more  than  once, 
making  a  difficult  exchange.  Claudia  always  said, 
"Drat  the  thing!"  when  her  sheet  refused  to  turn 
inside  out  or  to  fold,  and  Ann,  easily  pleased,  listened 
for  the  words  and  liked  to  hear  them.  There  was  a 
day  when  Ann's  portion  escaped  from  her  hands,  and, 
eluding  Claudia's  spasmodic  grab,  her  tentative 
pursuit,  the  more  whole-hearted  pursuit  of  stran- 
gers, and  seeming,  indeed,  for  its  feints  and  its  ruses, 
to  be  possessed  by  some  impish  spirit  of  mischief, 
flapped  itself,  after  making  many  persons  very 
ridiculous,  over  the  railing  and  out  to  sea.  Ann's 
amusement,  tempered  as  it  was  by  grateful  polite- 
ness, was  evidence  of  the  progress  she  had  made 
since  the  day  when  she  had  threatened  that  if  she 
laughed  she  might  cry.  She  often  laughed  now. 
Brighton  kept  her  amused.  There  were  always 
people  to  watch.  She  and  Claudia  would  watch 
them  frankly.  Claudia  would  say,  "Look  at  this! " 
as  she  had  said  about  the  roses  in  the  garden  at 
Redmayne.  And,  "Oh,  Ann,  this!"  and,  "Coming 
along  now.  Don't  look  up  for  a  moment.  No,  not 
yet.  Now!" 

Ann  sometimes  said,  "How  can  we  both  be  so 
silly?"  —  half  meaning  how  could  they  both  be  so 
vulgar. 

But  she  was  enjoying  herself,  and  Claudia  was 
enjoying  herself  hugely. 

"And  we're  not  unkind,"  Claudia  said.  "It  is  n't 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  225 

as  if  we  said  unkind  things,  or  let  them  see  how  funny 
they  are.  They're  proud  of  themselves.  They're 
bursting  with  pride.  Oh,  Ann,  this,  this  Bosom  and 
that  Waistcoat!" 

"Besides,"  Claudia  generally  ended  by  saying, 
"it  is  part  of  your  cure." 

So  they  amused  themselves. 

They  met  friends  and  acquaintances.  Ann  bright- 
ened daily.  She  liked  to  see  people  now. 

"When  we  go  back,"  she  said  to  Claudia,  "I 
think  I  must  give  some  parties." 

That  was,  once  more,  a  thought  that  had  been 
forming  for  some  days.  Ann,  since  her  husband's 
death,  had  on  the  whole  shirked  her  social  duties. 
She  had  never  greatly  cared  for  what  was  still  in 
those  days  called '  Society.'  Before  her  husband's  ill- 
ness altered  the  conditions  of  both  their  lives,  they 
had  seldom  been  alone.  At  Redmayne  and  in  Scot- 
land guests  had  succeeded  each  other  endlessly  as  it 
seemed  to  Ann  when  she  looked  back,  and  the  begin- 
ning of  May  to  the  end  of  July  had  seen  the  doors 
of  the  house  in  Charles  Street  thrown  open.  The 
round  had  been  a  little  wearisome,  and  Ann  had  not 
been  sorry  to  escape  from  it.  But  now  she  began 
to  wish  to  see  people  again.  A  very  good  sign, 
Claudia  thought  —  perhaps  the  best  sign  of  all. 

Soon  the  Bath  chair  was  discarded.  Ann  found 
she  could  walk.  She  walked  with  Claudia  then. 
Sometimes  they  took  what  they  called  quite  a  walk. 
In  the  afternoons  they  generally  drove. 


226  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

But  in  all  this  time  one  subject  was  closed  be- 
tween them.  Ann,  who  had  regretted  Claudia  so 
vehemently  on  the  day  when  she  had  seen  her  off 
at  Whitcombe,  for  the  series  of  visits  which  her 
own  illness  had  cut  short,  —  who,  but  one  half-hour 
bereft  of  her,  had  wished  her  back  so  ardently,  — 
had,  once  she  had  got  her  back,  asked  her  none  of 
the  questions  which  then  had  clamoured  for  utter- 
ance. 

It  was,  or  it  seemed  to  be,  as  it  had  been  be- 
fore: enough  that  Claudia  should  be  at  hand  for 
a  confidence  which  always  might,  but  perhaps  never 
would,  be  made. 

Claudia  on  her  part  had  a  sense  of  waiting  — 
always,  under  the  pleasant  calm  of  the  days  as  they 
went  by,  each  one  so  like  that  which  had  preceded 
it,  a  sense  of  waiting.  The  apparent  uneventfulness 
of  these  days  did  not  deceive  her.  Not  indefinitely 
would  this  calm  last.  It  was  not  that  she  looked 
for  bolts  from  the  blue,  or  even  for  a  storm.  She 
scanned  no  horizons.  She  just  waited,  thinking  her 
own  thoughts,  and  increasingly  aware  of  her  convic- 
tion that  Coram  was  not  done  with,  that  he  had 
not  passed  out  of  Ann's  life.  One  of  these  days  he 
would  come  back  and  then  —  then  what?  Then 
.  .  .  what? 

Of  one  thing  at  least  she  was  certain.  That  which 
would  happen  then  would  depend  upon  Ann.  It 
would  depend  upon  Ann,  she  believed,  far  more  than 
it  would  depend  upon  Coram.  It  would  depend 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  227 

almost  wholly  upon  Ann  —  unless  —  unless  she, 
Claudia,  could  contrive  that  it  should  depend  upon 
her! 

There  Claudia  paused,  thinking  furiously.  She 
had  her  own  theory  now,  cut,  dried,  garnered, 
stacked.  Woman,  where  Coram  was  concerned,  was 
the  pursuer,  not  the  pursued.  It  amounted  to  no 
more  than  that.  But  the  explanation  of  the  whole 
thing  was  there;  the  answer  to  every  question  that 
the  extraordinary  situation  raised.  For  that  (indi- 
rectly, perhaps,  in  one  sense,  but  horribly  directly  in 
another)  was  the  rock  upon  which  poor  unperceiv- 
ing  Ann  had  come  so  unexpectedly  to  grief.  Who, 
then,  so  fit  to  deal  with  the  situation  as  she,  Claudia 
Nanson,  who  understood  it?  And  how  to  let  an 
unconfiding  Ann  Forrester,  an  Ann  who  seemed  de- 
termined to  keep  her  own  counsel,  know  that  she 
did  understand  it!  She  could  only  wait,  adding  thus 
another  kind  of  waiting  to  that  of  which  she  was 
always  conscious  now,  and  which  she  thought  of, 
not  as  a  pause  or  a  lull,  but  as  a  marking  of  time 
that  with  the  passing  of  the  days  had  become  al- 
most audible. 

What  was  Ann  thinking?  She  could  not  tell. 
Ann  seemed  now  to  be  living  wholly  in  the  present. 
She  watched  for  the  daily  letter  from  Poulton  in- 
forming her  of  Johnny's  welfare.  She  appeared  to 
have  no  other  anxiety,  and  that,  set  duly  at  rest 
by  a  bulletin,  which,  so  healthy  was  Johnny,  hardly 


228  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

varied  at  all,  she  was  able  to  interest  herself  in  the 
day's  quiet  occupations  and  amusements. 

But  what  was  she  really  thinking? 

Or  was  she  just  not  thinking? 

Or  was  she,  also,  waiting? 

Ann  was  waiting,  and  knew  it.  She,  like  Claudia, 
caught  faint  echoes,  through  the  pleasant,  unimpor- 
tant days,  of  a  distant  sound  of  tramping.  That  was 
the  sound  of  the  marking  of  time.  Events  in  their 
march  had  come  to  a  halt,  but  the  halt  was  only 
temporary.  Presently  the  march  would  be  resumed. 

So  the  sun  shone,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  the 
days  passed. 

One  night  Ann  had  a  dream.  She  thought  she 
was  at  Redmayne.  She  thought  she  was  in  the 
library.  But  she  was  not  exactly  at  Redmayne,  nor 
exactly  in  the  library  either,  for  she  was  also  some- 
how still  at  Brighton.  The  Front  seemed  to  run 
through  the  library.  She  could  see  the  furniture  and 
the  walls  and  some  of  the  pictures,  —  notably  the 
Romney  over  the  fireplace,  —  but  she  could  see  the 
railings  and  the  sea  and  the  pier,  and  she  could  hear 
a  certain  piano  organ  which  haunted  the  King's 
Road,  and  which,  though  it  had,  it  is  to  be  sup- 
posed, the  usual  number  of  changes  to  its  repertory, 
always  seemed  when  you  heard  it  to  be  playing 
one  air  from  "La  Fille  de  Madame  Angot."  Tunn 
turn,  tiddle-um;  turn,  turn,  tiddle-um;  turn,  turn, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  229 

turn,  turn,  turn,  turn,  turn.  Well  might  the  tune 
(as  Ann  thought  even  in  her  dreaming)  jig  in  her 
head.  It  seemed  quite  natural  that,  though  she  was 
at  Redmayne  and  in  the"  library,  she  should  be  at 
Brighton  also.  The  hands  were  the  hands  of  Esau, 
the  voice  the  voice  of  Jacob,  but  she  felt  no  surprise. 
She  knew,  indeed,  that  she  was  dreaming.  The 
room,  which  was  also  the  Front,  was  thronged  with 
moving  people.  They  passed  her  in  endless  proces- 
sion. Most  of  those  persons  who,  by  their  appear- 
ance or  their  demeanour,  or  who,  for  this  or  that 
reason,  had  amused  or  interested  her  or  Claudia, 
were  there.  The  Waistcoat  was  amongst  them,  and 
the  big-bosomed  Jewess,  —  many  big-bosomed  Jew- 
esses, —  her  eye  perhaps  habituated  to  the  type 
and  so  reproducing  it  automatically;  and  a  little  man 
who  had  run  after  her  newspaper  and  said,  "There 
now!"  when  it  had  flown  over  the  railing  and  out  to 
sea;  and  her  Bath-chair  man;  and  others  and  others. 
There  were  people  that  she  had  seen  abroad  also. 
The  kind  Paris  doctor.  He  was  walking  with  Mrs. 
Piper.  But  she  felt  no  alarm.  She  felt  no  alarm  even 
when  as  they  passed  she  heard  the  word  '  Complifica- 
tions.'  Nothing  was  going  to  'come  out.'  Disgrace 
was  not  to  be  her  portion.  She  knew  that  as  Clau- 
dia knew  it  —  knew  it  sleeping,  it  seemed,  as  well  as 
waking,  so  that  if  it  had  been  Johnny's  foster  mother 
whom  she  had  seen,  or  some  one  from  the  little 
French  city  of  refuge,  and  talking,  say,  to  Whipple 
or  to  Lady  Mallard  or  to  Lady  Fotheringham  or  to 


230  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Miss  Blondin,  she  knew  that  she  still  would  have 
felt  no  alarm.  Her  dream  —  she  thought  about  it 
as  she  dreamt  it  —  was  not  frightening.  Presently, 
as  she  looked,  one  figure  singled  itself  out  from  the 
rest.  This  figure,  the  procession  coming  to  an  end 
as  suddenly  as  it  had  begun,  remained  behind.  Now 
there  was  only  this  figure — a  girl — and  herself,  and , 
as  the  last  of  the  others  passed  out  of  sight,  the  library 
became  wholly  the  library,  the  sea  disappearing,  the 
railings,  the  jutting  pier,  and  Ann  knew  that  she 
was  at  Redmayne. 

The  girl  was  Lucy  Edget,  the  kitchen-maid  who 
had  got  into  trouble  and  who  had  been  dismissed. 

"Now,  Lucy,"  Ann  heard  herself  saying,  "I  had, 
of  course,  to  part  with  you.  The  circumstances 
demanded  it.  There  were  the  other  servants  to 
think  of,  discipline,  the  example,  a  dozen  things.  I 
could  do  nothing  else.  But  Mrs.  Thomas  tells  me 
that  up  to  the  time  when  I  parted  with  you  you 
had  always  borne  a  good  character.  The  shock  to 
her  and  to  Mrs.  Piper  and  to  all  in  the  house  was 
thus  the  greater.  You  were,  I  believe,  a  good  girl. 
There  are  plenty  of  bad  girls,  but  you  were  different. 
You  were,  were  n't  you?  Now,  Lucy,  do  you  think 
you  could  tell  me  how  it  came  that  you,  a  good  girl, 
got  into  trouble?" 

Ann  was  waiting  for  Lucy's  answer  when  she 
woke. 

But  Ann  thought  of  Lucy  after  she  woke.  She 
recalled  her  very  distinctly  —  a  chubby-faced  girl 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  231 

who  had  sat  at  the  end  of  the  row  of  women  servants 
at  prayers,  where  a  moon-faced  Bessy  sat  now. 
Mrs.  Thomas,  the  cook,  engaged  her  own  kitchen- 
maids,  and  if  Ann  learnt  to  know  them  by  name 
that  was  as  far  as  she  ever  approached  towards  their 
acquaintance.  But  for  some  reason  she  had  noticed 
Lucy,  had  spoken  to  her  and  had  spoken  of  her  to 
Mrs.  Piper.  "I  like  that  girl,"  she  had  said,  and 
Mrs.  Piper  had  said,  "Yes,  'm,  a  nice  well-man- 
nered young  person  and  very  well-behaved,  so  Mrs. 
Thomas  informs  me.  Steady,  'm  —  the  best  quality 
in  young  girls." 

Afterwards  Mrs.  Piper,  recalling  the  incident,  had 
said:  "Steady  was  my  word,  'm,  if  you  remember  — 
which  was,  indeed,  that  every  one  thought  her. 
But  there,  'm,  you  never  can  know." 

Ann  had  agreed  that  you  never  could  know.  But 
that,  as  Ann  remembered  now,  was  before  she  herself 
had  known  anything.  You  never  could  know?  No, 
you  never  could  know!  She  had  not  any  doubt  now 
that  Lucy,  who  had  been  thought  to  be  steady,  had 
been  steady. 

She  lay  in  the  dark  thinking. 

What,  or  rather  where,  was  the  actual  line  be- 
tween goodness  and  that  which  she  had  always 
thought  of  as  badness?  Was  there,  indeed,  such  a 
line  at  all? 

She  lay  very  still  hi  the  dark.  In  it,  and  in  the 
silence  which  seemed  part  of  it,  she  could  hear  faintly 
the  recurring  sound  of  the  waves  breaking  on  the 


232  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

shore.  Now  came  the  thud,  and  now,  and  now; 
spaced;  regular  as  the  beat  of  a  pendulum.  She 
thought  of  the  deserted  length  of  the  Front  in  the 
darkness;  and  of  Redmayne  in  the  darkness;  and  — 
the  idea  of  darkness  probably  contributing  its  influ- 
ence —  of  the  waiting  boy  in  the  darkness  of  the 
wood  .  .  . 

Was  the  waiting  boy  waiting  for  every  one?  For 
Lucy  Edget,  as  for  her?  For  her,  as  for  Lucy  Edget? 
Waiting  in  the  darkness  to  leap  out  of  the  darkness? 
To  surprise  you  into  deeds  which  you  did  not  know 
you  had  it  in  you  to  do?  Was  the  waiting  boy  in 
yourself?  —  in  each  one  of  us? 

She  woke  in  the  morning  to  the  thought  of  Lucy 
Edget,  and  to  wish  that  the  question  she  had  put  to 
her  so  elaborately,  yet  so  clearly,  had  not  remained 
unanswered.  She  remembered  the  exact  words  in 
which,  summing  up  what  had  gone  before,  she  had 
framed  it. 

"  Now,  Lucy,  do  you  think  you  could  tell  me  how 
it  came  that  you,  a  good  girl,  got  into  trouble?" 

She  believed  that  Lucy,  if  she  would,  could  have 
told  her. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CLAUDIA  rose  one  morning  with  what  she  de- 
scribed to  herself  as  a  feeling  that  something  was 
going  to  happen.  She  looked  out  of  her  window  and 
saw  the  sea  shining  in  the  sun.  The  day  sparkled. 
For  once  nothing  flapped.  The  wind  had  gone  down. 
What  breeze  there  was  did  no  more  than  stir  the 
flag  upon  the  flagstaff  which  Claudia  could  see  from 
where  she  stood.  She  opened  her  window  and  knew 
that  the  first  promise  of  spring  was  in  the  air  and 
that  every  living  thing  was  in  some  way  responding 
to  it.  Birds  were  twittering.  Boys  were  whistling. 
The  very  barking  of  the  dogs  sounded  different. 
Even  the  piano  organ  of  the  King's  Road,  bursting 
suddenly  into  the  inevitable  "Fille  de  Madame 
Angot"  right  under  her  window,  was  in  key  with  the 
joyous  note  of  the  day.  How  the  tune,  which  one 
could  not  escape,  jigged!  How  it  jigged!  Claudia's 
fingers  drummed  upon  the  pane  in  time  to  the  gay 
jigging  of  it.  She  stayed  them  suddenly,  reminded 
of  other  fingers  that  once  had  drummed  upon  a  pane. 
But  in  a  moment  or  two  they  were  drumming  again. 
She  wanted  to  dance.  What  a  smiling,  twinkling 
day!  What  a  sky —  little  fleecy  clouds  in  it!  What 
a  sea  —  little  white  sails  on  it !  She  dressed  leisurely, 
returning  again  and  again  to  the  window.  Now  it 
was  a  passing  luggage-laden  omnibus  which  she 


234  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

paused  to  watch;  now  a  child  bowling  its  hoop;  now 
a  riding-master  and  his  pupils.  Nothing  actually  in 
the  day,  nothing  certainly  in  the  sights  which  it  pre- 
sented to  her,  to  presage  happenings;  but  she  had 
sense  continually  of  the  imminence  of  change.  There 
had  been  a  standing-still;  there  was  going  to  be 
movement. 

All  the  morning  she  had  a  sense  of  expect- 
ancy. Ann  and  she  did  shopping.  Claudia  absently 
hummed  little  tunes  as  she  walked. 

Ann,  noting  the  humming  but  not  the  preoccupa- 
tion, said,  "You're  in  very  good  spirits!" 

"Don't  you  feel  something,  Ann?  —  something 
in  the  air?" 

If  she  had  said  'anything'  for  'something'  Ann 
might  have  looked  at  her  and  seen  her  preoccupa- 
tion. 

"If  one  didn't  know  that  March  was  before 
one  —  " 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  that,"  said  Claudia;  "some- 
thing more  than  that.  Though  that,"  she  added, 
"may  be  partly  why  I  was  humming." 

Impossible  to  leave  out  altogether  the  influences 
of  the  day  itself,  since  these,  represented  by  a  soft- 
ness and  a  warmth  that  were  yet  stimulating  and 
enlivening,  marked,  or  seemed  to  mark,  a  turning- 
point  in  the  year.  They  had  their  effect  very  truly 
upon  her  spirits ;  but  it  was  not  these  that  gave  her 
the  feelings  with  which  she  had  awaked  and  which, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  235 

as  the  hours  went  by  uneventfully,  increased  rather 
than  diminished  in  fervency.  Something  was  going 
to  happen. 

"Now,"  said  Ann,  "the  Library.  Let  us  go  and 
choose  some  books." 

Always  a  pleasure  to  Claudia  the  choosing  of 
books  at  the  Library.  She  like  to  sit  waiting  for 
what  should  be  brought  to  her  of  the  books  on  the 
list,  or,  better  still,  to  explore  the  shelves  for  what 
should  take  her  fancy.  This  morning  neither  she 
nor  Ann  had  brought  a  list.  It  would  be  a  question 
of  choosing  from  the  shelves.  Z£lie  later  in  the  day 
would  return  the  volumes  which  were  done  with, 
exchanging  them  for  those  which  should  be  de- 
cided upon  now,  and  which  would  be  tied  up  and 
put  aside  in  readiness  for  her.  But  this  morning 
Claudia  could  not  concentrate  her  attention  even 
upon  the  shelves. 

"Ann,  you  choose,"  she  said.  "  I  don't  think  there 
is  anything  that  I  particularly  want  to  read." 

Ann  went  to  the  bookshelves.  The  newest  books 
were  on  a  shelf  by  themselves,  but  somehow  it  was 
not  new  books  that  you  looked  for  at  this  Library. 
Here  at  this  time  were  names  popular  then,  almost 
forgotten  now.  Here  were  names  hardly  known 
then,  to-day  acclaimed.  Here  were  names  famous 
then,  famous,  a  few  of  them,  still.  In  sets  of  threes 
the  volumes  asked  your  suffrages,  some  pathetically 
your  sufferance.  You  said  of  such  and  such  a  book 
that  it  was  very  pretty,  of  such  and  such  an  author 


236  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

that  he  had  written  himself  out.  But,  on  the  whole, 
you  were  very  tolerant.  Ann,  a  little  in  advance  of 
her  times,  had  discovered  George  Meredith  for  her^ 
self,  and,  more  recently,  in  "Far  from  the  Madding 
Crowd,"  Thomas  Hardy.  Claudia  frankly  liked 
Ouida  (who  was  thought  rather  shocking  and  was 
read  stealthily  by  the  young  and  furtively  by  their 
elders)  and  the  author  of  "Guy  Livingstone." 

Claudia  left  Ann  to  the  shelves.  Some  magazines 
lay  on  a  counter  and  she  went  over  and  looked  at 
them:  "Temple  Bar,"  "Cornhill,"  "All-the-Year- 
Round,"  "Belgravia,"  "The  Argosy."  There  were 
also  "The  Sunday  at  Home,"  "The  Quiver,"  and 
"The  Leisure  Hour."  Humbler  piles  showed  "The 
Family  Herald,"  "The  London  Journal,"  "The 
London  Reader,"  and  "Bow  Bells."  An  old  lady  was 
buying  books  for  her  grandchildren.  She  gave  to  one 
"Fern's  Hollow,"  by  the  author  of  the  "Children 
of  Cloverley";  to  another,  "The  Fishers  of  Darby 
Haven";  to  a  third,  "Jessica's  First  Prayer." 
Claudia,  looking  at  the  pictures  in  "Bow  Bells," 
found  her  attention  wandering.  Presently  she  was 
at  the  door  of  the  shop.  Then  she  was  in  the  porch 
and  looking  at  a  windowful  of  the  black  cards  with 
the  white  designs  upon  them  which  just  then  it  was 
the  fashion  to  illuminate.  They,  like  the  novels 
which  you  approved,  were  thought  very  pretty. 
There  were  crosses  wreathed  with  forget-me-nots 
or  convolvulus,  or  anchors  with  lilies-of-the-valley 
or  texts  in  fancy  lettering,  or  mere  bouquets  of  flow- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  237 

ers.  And  then  she  was  out  in  the  street  itself,  and 
then,  quite  suddenly  and  with  a  thumping  heart 
(and,  as  she  put  it  to  herself,  no  time  to  think),  she 
was  off  —  off  in  pursuit  of  a  back  which  she  knew  — 
knew  in  her  bones  almost  before  she  saw  it  —  to  be 
the  back  of  Timothy  Coram. 

This  was  what  the  strange  day  had  portended! 
Timothy  Coram  was  home  again.  Timothy  Coram 
was  here  in  Brighton.  Timothy  Coram  was  walking 
a  few  yards  ahead  of  her.  What  was  she  going  to 
do? 

Speak  to  him?  Yes,  she  supposed  she  was  going 
to  speak  to  him.  For  the  moment  what  she  had  to 
do  was  to  keep  him  in  sight.  That  filled  the  imme- 
diate present,  for  the  pavements  were  crowded.  How 
crowded  they  were!  Brighton  was  as  crowded  as 
London.  The  sunshine  and  the  mildness  had  brought 
every  one  out.  Perambulators  ought  not  to  be  al- 
lowed on  the  footpaths.  She  begged  some  one's  par- 
don and  some  one  said  'Granted.'  People  stopped 
just  in  front  of  you,  or  people  even  turned  about 
directly  in  your  way.  And  what  was  she  going  to 
do?  What  was  she  really  going  to  do?  She  must 
make  up  her  mind.  Yes,  speak  to  him,  of  course; 
that  was  settled.  But  how  —  in  what  manner? 
What  was  her  attitude  towards  him?  What  was 
Ann's  attitude?  She  must  not  compromise  Ann's 
potential  attitude  by  her  own.  Goodness!  Good- 
ness! She  had  had  a  year  and  a  half  for  thought  and 


238  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

she  had  not  thought.  She  was  as  unprepared  as  if 
there  had  been  nothing  to  prepare  for.  She  should 
have  sounded  Ann.  All  this  time  she  should  have 
been  engaged  in  sounding  her. 

Timothy  Coram  walked  on.  Claudia,  though  she 
had  to  walk  fast,  could  have  overtaken  him  if  she 
had  been  ready.  If  she  was  not  ready  it  must  suffice 
that  she  should  keep  him  hi  sight.  She  saw  people 
she  knew,  friends  of  Ann's,  bearing  upon  her.  No- 
body must  stop  her.  But  Colonel  Worthington-Smith 
admired  her  and  said,  "How  do  you  do?"  and  Mrs. 
Worthington-Smith,  who  was  obedient  to  her 
lord's  smallest  wish,  said,  "How  do  you  do?"  And 
Claudia,  in  spite  of  herself,  said,  "How  do  you  do?" 
And  Claudia,  her  eye  on  a  diminishing  back,  said, 
"Yes,  lovely."  And,  "Yes,  like  a  spring  day,  is  n't 
it?"  —  but  shook  herself  free  with  a  jerky  "I  have 
to  hurry  on.  Mrs.  Forrester  is  waiting  for  me.  You 
will  excuse  me,  won't  you?"  Two  surprised  "Good- 
byes" followed  her.  Ann's  friends  would  probably 
meet  Ann.  But  it  could  n't  be  helped.  Timothy 
Coram  had  made  thirty  yards  by  their  tiresome- 
ness. He  was  crossing  the  road.  A  carriage  and 
then  a  butcher's  cart  delayed  her  own  crossing.  He 
had  made  forty  yards  now,  perhaps  fifty.  Was  she 
going  to  lose  him? 

People  turned  their  heads  after  the  hurrying  lady. 
No.  He  had  paused  to  look  into  a  shop  window. 
She  was  gaining  upon  him.  He  moved  on.  It  was 
like  the  chase  of  Ann's  newspaper. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  239 

And  Ann  still  with  the  books.  Had  she  missed 
her  yet?  What  would  she  think  had  become  of  her? 
Goodness,  goodness,  as  if  it  mattered !  Time  enough 
for  all  that.  What  she  had  got  to  think  about  as 
the  precious  moments  went  by  was  what  she  was 
going  to  do. 

"Let  me  get  that  into  my  silly  head,"  she  said 
to  herself  impatiently.  "Let  me  make  up  my  mind 
if  I  have  one!" 

And  somewhere  a  letter  —  or  the  dust  or  the 
ashes  of  a  letter.  And,  at  Redmayne,  Johnny  Smith 
in  his  perambulator,  or  Poulton's  arms,  or  his 
cradle  .  .  . 

And  nothing  settled. 

She  could  not  think.  Her  brain  refused  to  work 
for  her.  She  hurried  on,  blindly. 

He  was  turning  into  the  King's  Road.  She  ran  a 
few  steps  when  he  had  safely  turned  the  corner. 

He  was  walking  more  slowly  now.  Near  Mutton's, 
which  she  feared  he  might  be  making  for  for  an 
early  luncheon,  he  crossed  over  to  the  Front.  It  was 
now  or  never.  Claudia  hurried  on,  crossed  some 
little  way  ahead  of  him,  and  was  walking  demurely 
and  with  downcast  eyes,  when  some  one,  who 
turned  out  to  be  Mr.  Coram,  hesitated,  stopped, 
and  spoke  her  name. 

"Mrs.  Nanson.    It  is  Mrs.  Nanson." 

No  one  was  ever  more  taken  by  surprise  than 
Claudia! 

"Mr.  Coram!" 


24o  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

They  looked  at  each  other. 

She  had  made  no  pretence  of  not  remembering 
him;  he  made  none  of  having  expected  not  to  be 
remembered.  Each  thought,  and  knew  that  the 
other  thought,  of  the  circumstances  of  their  last 
meeting  and  parting. 

"And  you  are  not  the  other  side  of  the  world!" 
she  said.  Something  stupid  had  to  be  said.  "I 
thought  you  were  in  ...  where  did  I  think  you 
were?"  She  gave  a  little  laugh.  "I  don't  know 
where  I  thought  you  were." 

"  I  got  back  ten  days  ago.  I  have  an  old  aunt  here 
—  my  nearest  relation.  I  came  down  yesterday  to 
see  her." 

"Have  you  been  to  Redmayne?" 

He  shook  his  head. 

"Nobody  knows  I'm  back  yet.  I  hardly  knew 
I  meant  to  come  back,  myself,  till  I  sailed.  I  made 
up  my  mind  at  a  few  hours'  notice." 

"You  did  something  like  that  once  before," 
Claudia  said  to  herself. 

She  thought  there  was  a  pause  before  he  said, 
"How  is  Mrs.  Forrester?" 

"Oh,  much  better,"  said  Claudia. 

"She's  been  ill!" 

"Yes,  but  she's  much  better.  Indeed,  she  is  quite 
well  again." 

She  was  wondering  whether  he  knew  of  Johnny  — 
whether  Mr.  Bulkley  had  told  him.  But  she  was 
wondering  so  many  things:  What  he  was  thinking. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  241 

To  what  extent  he  supposed  her  to  be  in  Ann's  con- 
fidence. How,  now  that  she  saw  him  again,  Ann 
could  have  let  him  go!  (But  Ann  had  n't  thought 
he  would  go.  That  was  the  point.  Let  her,  for  good- 
ness' sake,  try  to  keep  to  it  —  try  to  remember.) 
She  had  control  of  her  wits  now,  but  not  quite  of 
her  mind,  which,  working  once  more,  seemed  to 
work  on  its  own  account. 

He  was  speaking  again. 

"You  see  her  sometimes,  I  suppose?" 

"I  see  her  constantly." 

"At  Redmayne,  you  mean," 

"At  Redmayne  and  here." 

"Mrs.  Forrester  is  here?" 

Something  had  come  into  his  face,  and  into  his 
voice. 

"  I  left  her  ten  minutes  ago." 

There  was  no  doubt  about  the  pause  which  fol- 
lowed that.  Claudia  did  not  break  it.  She  knew 
now  that  she  had  no  plan.  For  the  moment  things 
must  take  their  course. 

"Which  way  are  you  going?"  he  said  presently. 

"I  was  only  taking  the  air,"  Claudia  said. 

"May  I  walk  with  you  a  few  yards?" 

"Shall  we  go  this  way?"  Claudia  said,  turning 
round.  She  did  not  want  to  meet  Ann  yet. 

They  walked  in  the  direction  of  Hove. 

Brighton  hummed  about  them.  The  sea  shone  and 
sparkled.  Children  and  their  nurses  were  on  the 
beach.  You  would  not  have  been  surprised  to  see 


242  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

bathers.  Claudia  thought  of  the  bathers  at  Fother- 
ingham.  A  lifetime  seemed  to  have  passed  since  she 
and  Ann  had  laughed  at  their  bobbings  and  dippings 
and  splashings.  Something  had  happened  to  Ann 
that  day;  she  had  never  known  what.  A  strange, 
restless  Ann  had  come  back  from  a  cheerful  and 
apparently  uneventful  drive.  And  it  was  from  that 
day  that,  gathering  impetus  like  waters  nearing  the 
weir,  events  had  hurried  smoothly  to  catastrophe. 

And  the  man  beside  whom  she  was  walking  did 
not  know  of  any  catastrophe  at  all.  What  he  did 
know  of  he  would  not,  she  supposed,  look  upon  in 
the  light  of  a  catastrophe.  Her  letter,  she  was  sure, 
had  not  reached  him. 

For  a  few  moments  as  she  walked  she  was  near 
crying.  When  she  thought  of  what  Ann  had  suffered , 
what  Ann  had  faced,  what  Ann  had  conquered,  she 
could  have  screamed.  The  woman  is  broken  on  the 
wheel  and  the  man  goes  free.  The  woman  takes  up 
her  cross  and  carries  it  to  her  own  Calvary  and  the 
man  does  not  so  much  as  know  that  the  tree  has 
been  planted  from  which  the  cross  was  to  be  made. 
For  a  space  measured  in  time  by  a  few  seconds,  in 
action  by  a  few  steps,  she  hated  the  man  and  could 
have  killed  him  —  hated  all  men  for  his  sake. 

And  if  he  saw  he  would  know.  And  whatever 
happened  he  must  not  know.  The  urgency  of  the 
need  for  self-control  helped  her  to  a  mastery  of  her 
feelings. 

The  two  walked  on.    An  approaching  goat-car- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  243 

riage  on  the  other  side  of  the  railing  caught  Clau- 
dia's eye,  and  she  fixed  her  attention  on  it  while  she 
steadied  her  thoughts.  A  boy  led  the  goat.  A  proud 
little  girl  sat  in  the  carriage.  A  complacent  mother 
walked  behind.  The  little  girl,  as  they  passed, 
grinned  in  their  faces.  Claudia  felt  better. 

Coram  was  talking,  and  she  began  to  hear  what 
he  was  saying.  He  was  talking  of  Redmayne.  She 
.began  to  hear  names;  Bulkley's  name,  once  or  twice; 
Whipple's,  Mrs.  Piper's. 

"Mrs.  Piper  still  has  her  cough?" 

She  heard  that  and  answered  it  —  even  contriv- 
ing a  smile. 

"She  never  forgets  it  for  long,"  she  said. 

"  I  Ve  wished  I  could  hear  it  again." 

"You  will,"  she  said,  to  her  surprise,  for  it  was  as 
if  to  comfort  him  that  she  said  that.  "  It  never  gets 
better,"  she  added.  Why  if  she  hated  him  should 
she  wish  to  console  him?  And  how,  or  rather  why, 
did  she  know  suddenly  that  he  was  unhappy?  But 
she  did  know  it.  Even  as  she  knew  that,  though  he 
talked  of  Mrs.  Piper,  it  was  Ann  he  wanted  to  talk 
of  —  Ann  that  he  really  was  talking  of.  He  was 
talking  of  her  when  he  talked  of  Piper  and  Piper's 
cough,  when  he  talked  of  Whipple,  when  he  talked 
of  Bulkley. 

"It  also  never  gets  worse,"  she  said.  "It  never 
will." 

"Nothing  is  changed." 

But  she  knew  that  everything  was  changed.  And 


244  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

that  brought  her  again  to  Johnny.  Surely  he  must 
know  of  Johnny.  Bulkley,  if  he  wrote  to  him,  must 
have  told  him.  He  probably  had  other  correspond- 
ents, too,  who  must  have  told  him.  That  he  did  not 
know  who  Johnny  was,  however,  she  was  quite,  quite 
sure.  She  thought  rapidly — her  mind  was  working 
for  her  obediently  now  —  and  decided  to  speak  of 
Johnny  at  once.  On  every  account  she  would  speak 
of  Johnny,  if  only  to  make  certain  that  he  knew  of 
his  existence.  If  Ann  should  see  him  —  if  she  should 
consent,  as  Claudia  was  determined  that  she  should, 
to  see  him  —  it  was  expedient  that  she  should  be 
under  no  uncertainty  upon  this  point. 

"Oh,  one  change,"  she  said.  "You  heard  of 
Johnny  Smith?  You  know  that  Mrs.  Forrester  has 
adopted  a  child?" 

"Yes.  That's  one  of  the  things  I  want  to  hear 
about.  But  I  want  to  hear  about  everything.  I  feel 
as  if  I  had  been  away  a  hundred  years." 

No,  he  did  not  know  who  Johnny  was. 

"I  advised  it,"  Claudia  said.  She  felt  safe 
now.  "Ann  —  Mrs.  Forrester  —  is  rather  a  lonely 
woman.  I  think  an  interest  was  what  she  wanted, 
and  Johnny  has  certainly  been  a  success.  She  is  de- 
voted to  him.  He  is  a  dear  little  boy.  She  is  the 
sort  of  woman  who  ought  to  have  had  children. 
I  think,  though  she  did  n't  know  it,  that  it  had  al- 
ways been  a  disappointment  to  her  in  her  married 
life  that  she  had  none.  It  must  certainly  have  been 
a  disappointment  to  Mr.  Forrester." 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  245 

"I  suppose  it  was,"  said  Coram. 

They  took  a  few  steps  in  silence.  Claudia  allowed 
herself  a  glance  at  his  face.  She  was  going  to  have 
no  difficulty.  When  he  spoke  he  was  following  the 
train  of  thought  upon  which  she  had  started  him. 

"I  suppose  it  was,"  he  said  again.  "He  was  an 
odd  man  in  some  ways.  You  never  quite  knew  what 
he  was  thinking.  He  lived  a  sort  of  separate  life. 
But  he  must  have  wished  for  a  son.  Every  one  must 
wish"  —  he  hesitated  and  resigned  himself  to  a 
phrase  —  "must  wish  to  hand  on  the  torch." 

She  waited  for  the  inevitable  question.  It  came. 
For  once  it  was  welcome. 

"Oh,  well,"  she  said,  "we  have  a  sort  of  an  idea. 
We  saw  —  it  was  understood  rather  —  that  one 
must  n't  enquire  too  closely.  There  were  several 
answers  to  the  advertisement.  We  went  up  to  Lon- 
don and  saw  two  or  three  children.  We  both  fell 
in  love  with  Johnny.  He  wanted  a  home,  and  we 
wanted  him.  That  settled  it." 

That  settled  other  things  also  —  all  that  she 
need  do,  for  example,  in  the  matter  of  prepara- 
tion. Nor  had  she  departed  by  a  hair's  breadth  from 
the  truth,  wide  of  the  real  truth  as  was  the  impres- 
sion which  her  words  were  intended  to  convey  or 
confirm.  She  might  smile  to  herself  now,  and  she 
did,  if  a  little  wanly.  She  had  left  Ann  free  to  do  as 
she  liked  —  to  enlighten  him  or  leave  him  in  dark- 
ness as  seemed  good  to  her.  Her  immediate  part 
was  done. 


246  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

She  felt  suddenly  tired. 

"Shall  we  sit  down  for  a  moment?"  she  said. 

"Was  I  walking  too  fast  for  you?  I  walk  so  much 
by  myself  that  I  forget  sometimes." 

"No ;  but  we  will  sit  for  a  little  and  then  I  must  be 
going  back.  What  time  is  it?" 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "you  don't  want  to  know  the  time 
yet  —  Please!  There  are  so  many  things  I  want  to 
hear  about.  I  have  seen  no  one  from  —  I  was  going 
to  say  home.  No  one  connected  with  Redmayne. 
I  still  think  of  the  little  old  house  there  as  my  home. 
It  was  my  home  for  so  many  years.  I  still  grudge  it 
to  Bulkley." 

"Why  did  you  leave  it?"  Claudia  said  to  herself. 
"My  good  man,  why  did  you  leave  it?"  Aloud  she 
said,  "What  is  the  time?" 

It  was  ten  minutes  to  one. 

"Ten  minutes,  then.  And  then  I  must  be  getting 
back  to  Mrs.  Forrester,  who  will  think  I  am  lost, 
and  to  luncheon.  What  do  you  want  to  know?" 

She  could  look  at  him  frankly  now.  He  was  what 
the  novels  of  those  days,  and  of  many  a  day  after, 
perhaps,  called,  and  loved  to  call,  'bronzed,'  and 
Claudia  thought  him,  and  admitted  to  herself,  and 
later  to  Ann,  that  she  thought  him  comelier  than 
ever.  There  was  a  little  network  of  lines  about  his 
eyes  that  she  had  not  observed  before,  but  this  did 
not  make  him  look  older.  The  eyes  themselves  had 
something  of  the  look  that  sailors'  eyes  have  —  the- 
look  of  having  gazed  over  vast  blue  spaces.  She  did 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  247 

not  suppose  that  even  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
time  that  he  had  been  away  on  his  travels  had  been 
spent  at  sea,  but  the  look  was  there.  It,  like  the 
little  network  of  lines  that  yet  did  not  age  him,  was 
somehow  disarming.  She  could  not  hate  him.  There 
was  a  plea  somewhere.  She  could  conceive  that  one 
might  love  him  very  much.  And  then  she  felt  once 
more  that  she  had  the  key  to  how  'it,'  to  how  every- 
thing, had  happened. 

"What  do  you  want  to  know?"  she  said  again. 

He  startled  her  with  her  own  word. 

"Everything,"  he  said.  "And  about  everything. 
"I'm  like  Rip  Van  Winkle  after  his  years  of  sleep 
in  the  Kaatskill  Mountains." 

"Everything?"  Claudia  said,  —  "in  ten  min- 
utes?" 

He  looked  at  her  slowly. 

"What  I  want  to  know  —  what  I  really  want  to 
know,  you  could  tell  me  in  less  than  that." 

The  goat-carriage  was  coming  back.  Claudia  heard 
the  jangle  of  the  goat's  bells  behind  her.  She  turned 
her  head.  The  child  grinned  again,  looked  from  her 
to  Coram,  and  cried,  "  Dad-dee!"  The  mother  said, 
"Hush,  darling.  That 'snot  Papa!"  Claudia  turned 
rather  quickly  and  asked  Coram  what  it  was  she 
could  tell  him. 

But  he  did  not  seem  able  quite  at  once  to  ask  her 
what  he  wanted  to  know.  He  was  probably  wonder- 
ing again  how  far  she  was  in  Ann's  confidence,  or 
whether  she  was  in  Ann's  confidence  at  all.  He  upon 


248  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

his  part,  as  she  upon  hers,  had  to  beware  lest  Ann 
should  be  compromised  by  words  which  might  be 
admissions  —  indications  even.  He  possibly  knew 
that  Claudia  was  clever.  She  was  clever  enough  to 
perceive  his  difficulty  and  to  help  him.  After  all,  she 
had  knowledge  which  she  might  own  to  —  knowl- 
edge which  was  common  to  them  both.  She  had 
been  present  at  that  last  dinner  at  Redmayne 
(should  she  ever  forget  it?)  and  had  been  witness 
to  emotions  which,  whether  she  had  Ann's  confi- 
dence or  not,  she  had  been  at  liberty  to  interpret  as 
she  would.  She  might,  at  least,  be  supposed  to  have 
thought  that  perhaps  he  was  in  love  with  Ann  and 
prevented  (as  she  had,  indeed,  thought!)  by  conven- 
tional reasons  from  'speaking.'  She  would  assume 
so  much,  anyway. 

"You  want  to  see  Ann,"  she  said,  and  (the  formal 
seventies  not  days  of  Christian  names)  corrected  the 
Ann,  as  before,  to  'Mrs.  Forrester.' 

He  responded  at  once,  at  once  perceiving  that 
what  he  had  been  trying  to  ask  —  which  was,  of 
course,  whether  Ann  would  see  him  —  was  to  be 
ignored. 

"I  want  greatly  to  see  Mrs.  Forrester." 

He  looked  both  his  relief  and  his  gratitude. 

"I  will  tell  her  I  met  you,"  Claudia  said. 

He  saw  that  she  meant  that  she  could  not  do  more 
than  that. 

" I'll  give  you  my  address.  I  am  staying  in  Bruns-' 
wick  Square.  No.  99.  I  '11  write  it  down." 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  249 

"I  shall  remember." 

But  he  wrote  the  address  down  on  a  leaf  which  he 
tore  from  his  pocket-book.  He  folded  the  paper  and 
gave  it  to  her.  His  hand  trembled. 

Presently  they  were  retracing  their  steps.  They 
were  both  almost  silent  now.  Afterwards  she  re- 
membered that  she  had  asked  him  nothing  about 
his  travels.  Opposite  Regency  Square  she  stopped 
and  put  out  her  hand.  Something  seemed  to  have 
been  said  in  the  silence  —  nay,  by  the  silence,  by 
the  very  fact  of  their  joint  silence  —  some  further 
point  reached. 

"Make  her  see  me,"  he  said. 

One  of  her  rings  pressed  so  deeply  into  her  finger 
that  she  nearly  squealed.  She  bore  the  pain,  and, 
accepting  what  the  silence  had  shown,  promised  to 
do  her  best.  They  parted  then  —  he  to  walk  over 
the  downs,  urged  by  Heaven  knew  what  of  restless- 
ness and  excitement ;  she  to  seek  Ann. 


CHAPTER  IX 

BUT  something  else  had  happened. 

Ann  met  her  with  a  white  face,  and  for  a  moment 
Claudia  thought  that  she  knew.  She  seemed  to  be 
waiting  for  her.  She  was  talking  to  the  manager 
through  the  window  of  the  office,  which  faced  the 
door,  and  had  turned  at  his  "Here  is  Mrs.  Nanson," 
and  hurried  towards  her. 

"Where  have  you  been?  I  thought  you'd  never 
come  in.  Johnny's  ill." 

She  thrust  a  telegram  into  Claudia's  hand,  but 
told  her  its  contents  before  Claudia  could  read  them. 
Congestion  of  the  lungs.  Johnny's  little  lungs  .  .  . 
that  baby's !  No  immediate  danger.  But  would  they 
have  said  that  if  there  was  n't  danger? 

"What  would  you  like  to  do,  Claudia?  I  'm  going 
by  the  next  train  —  there's  one  at  three.  And  Z61ie 
will  follow  with  the  luggage.  Will  you  come  with  me, 
or  would  you  rather  wait?" 

"Go  with  you,"  said  Claudia.  "Of  course  I'll  go 
with  you." 

They  were  hurrying  across  the  hall.  "I  can't  go 
in  to  luncheon.  I  've  ordered  something  —  some  cold 
chicken  upstairs.  Zelie  will  pack  for  you  afterwards. 
Oh,  Claudia  .  .  ." 

Claudia  pressed  the  hand  she  held,  murmuring  en-' 
dearments,  encouragements,  exhortations.  "You'll 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  251 

find  he's  better,  Ann.  I  know  we  shall  find  him 
better." 

"If  I  could  feel  that  it  wasn't  a  judgment  on 
me,"  said  Ann  —  "that  he  was  n't  suffering  for  me." 
She  bit  her  lip  to  keep  back  the  tears.  "That's 
where  I  could  be  hit  if  I  have  n't  been  punished 
enough." 

"Ann,  Ann.   It  is  n't  a  question  of  punishment." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Ann. 

It  was  not  a  moment  in  which  to  speak  of  Coram. 
Claudia  saw  that  she  must  wait.  She  went  to  her 
own  room,  ostensibly  to  put  together  what  she 
wanted  for  the  journey,  actually  to  write  a  note 
which  she  must  contrive  to  despatch  to  Brunswick 
Square  before  she  left.  Poor  Ann,  poor  Johnny  — 
poor  Timothy  also! 

"A  telegram,"  she  wrote,  "has  called  us  back 
to  Redmayne.  The  little  boy,  Johnny,  is  ill."  She 
paused  considering  how  best  to  let  him  know  that 
this  sudden  move  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  events 
of  the  morning.  To  say  so  was  not  only  to  admit  to 
some  degree,  at  least,  of  Ann's  confidence,  but  also 
to  involve  her  in  a  sort  of  partisanship  with  his  cause. 
Well,  she  had  committed  herself  to  the  first  with 
her  "You  want  to  see  Ann"  (as  the  later  silence 
had  proved),  and  to  the  second,  though  not  irrev- 
ocably, by  her  subsequent  promise.  So  she  stated 
baldly  that  she  had  not  been  able  to  tell  Ann  that  she 
had  seen  him,  and  said,  wondering  a  little  to  what 


252  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

further  she  was  pledging  herself,  that  she  would  write 
to  him  again  from  Redmayne. 

She  slipped  from  her  room,  managed  to  get  hold 
of  a  messenger,  and  was  back  with  Ann  in  less  than 
ten  minutes. 

The  journey  was  dreadful.  Ann  spoke  or  was  si- 
lent. Claudia  did  not  know  which  was  the  more 
dreadful,  her  words  or  her  silence.  She  was  pos- 
sessed now  with  the  idea  of  punishment.  The  story 
of  David  and  the  child  was  in  her  mind  and  on  it. 
In  vain  did  Claudia  point  out  that  Ann  had  put  no 
one  in  the  forefront  of  a  battle.  God  loved  David, 
Ann  said,  but  the  child  died. 

"Don't  be  silly,"  Claudia  said,  goaded  to  im- 
patience, though  she  knew  that  for  the  time  be- 
ing Ann  was  not  mistress  of  her  thoughts.  "You 
might  as  well  say  that  you  ought  to  wear  a  Scarlet 
Letter." 

"I  think  it  is  because  I  don't,"  said  Ann. 

They  came  as  near  to  quarrelling  as  perhaps  they 
had  ever  come.  But  if  at  the  moment,  lest  her  im- 
patience should  get  the  better  of  her,  she  had  to  re- 
mind herself  of  what  Ann  had  gone  through,  Claudia 
in  her  heart  understood.  The  conditions  were  still 
those  which  had  caused  Ann's  own  illness.  Nerves 
had  been  overwrought,  strength  overtaxed.  Who 
had  excuse  for  unreasonableness,  for  perversity  even, 
if  not  poor  Ann,  who  sat  looking  out  of  the  window 
refusing  to  be  comforted? 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  253 

Claudia,  at  the  other  end  of  the  carriage,  looked 
out  of  her  window.  Her  irritation  soon  passed,  turn- 
ing wholly  into  the  pity  of  which  it  was  more  than 
half  composed.  She  saw  houses,  trees,  fields,  —  sea- 
gulls, twice,  in  the  wake  of  a  plough,  —  but  what  she 
was  conscious  of  was  not  these,  but  the  forlornness 
of  Ann's  attitude.  Though  she  did  not  look  in  her 
direction,  nothing  of  the  poignancy  of  this  escaped 
her.  Ann  did  not  move.  Her  hands  lay  in  her  lap. 
Her  stillness  was  more  distressing  than  any  rest- 
lessness. 

And  to  Claudia  —  a  question  thus  answering 
itself  for  her  —  there  was  a  dangerous  quality  in 
Ann's  extreme  quiescence.  It  was  unnatural.  It 
meant  that  Ann  was  not  herself  restored  to  health. 
Nothing  was  going  to  be  discovered,  nothing  was 
going  to  be  guessed  or  suspected  .  .  .  unless  Ann 
.  .  .  Ann  herself  .  .  . 

Claudia  was  back  with  the  difficulties  she  had 
thought  disposed  of  once  for  all  on  a  day  when  she 
had  'upped'  and  spoken. 

If  Ann  went  on  like  this  at  Redmayne  .  .  . 

The  wheels  of  the  carriage  took  up  the  tune. 

The  sea-gulls  Claudia  had  seen  in  ploughed  fields 
gave  place  to  rooks,  and  rooks  moved  about  the  old 
nests  in  some  bare  trees.  She  imagined  but  could 
not  hear  cawings.  The  sunshine  was  thinner  now, 


254  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

but  there  was  still  sunshine.  There  were  lambs  in  one 
field.   Spring  was  coming. 

She  had  it  in  her  power  to  rouse  Ann.  Should  she 
use  this  power  which  she  had?  She  had  but  to  say 
that  Coram  was  back  and  something  would  happen. 
What,  however,  would  the  something  be  which 
would  happen?  Ann  in  her  present  mood  was  cap- 
able of  anything:  of  refusing  to  see  him,  which  was 
no  more  than  was  to  be  expected,  perhaps;  of  re- 
fusing to  allow  Claudia  to  communicate  with  him 
—  which,  as  capable  of  leading  to  endless  embar- 
rassments, was  a  contingency  not  lightly  to  be 
courted.  No,  the  time  was  not  yet.  She  must  wait 
for  the  right  moment.  She  must  hope  to  recognize  it 
when  it  came. 

She  looked,  and  knew  that  she  looked,  herself  a 
little  forlorn  now.  She  half  hoped  that  Ann  would 
see.  Her  own  eyes  were  turned  as  despondently  as 
Ann's  to  the  passing  landscape,  her  face  was  averted 
from  Ann  as  Ann's  from  her.  Her  hands  were  in  her 
muff.  She  was  as  still  as  Ann.  But  Ann  did  not  see. 

A  dreadful  journey.  There  were  two  changes,  but 
not  even  these  broke  the  spell.  It  was  not  till  they 
were  approaching  Windlestone  that  Ann,  racked 
now  by  anxiety  as  to  what  news  might  await  her, 
became  human. 

With  a  human  Ann  Claudia  could  deal. 

« 

The  brougham  was  waiting;  Charles,  the  footman, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  255 

rugs  on  his  arm,  was  on  the  platform.  A  look  told 
her  that  Johnny  was  not  dead. 

If  anything  there  was  a  slight  improvement, 
Charles  said.  The  doctor,  who  had  paid  his  second 
visit  that  day,  was  not  coming  again  till  the  morning. 
Claudia  rather  than  Ann  asked  the  questions.  Once 
inside  the  carriage,  Ann  cried.  There,  behind  the  two 
backs,  Ann  might  cry  as  she  might  have  cried  in  the 
train.  Claudia  welcomed  the  sight  of  her  tears.  Her 
arm  went  round  her  and  Ann  did  not  draw  herself 
away. 

Here,  yes,  as  much  as  she  liked.  Let  the  easing 
tears  flow. 

"Ann,  may  I  say  something  now?" 

Ann  nodded. 

"I  know  what  it  is,"  she  said. 

"I  need  n't  say  it?" 

"I  'm  his  adopted  mother." 

"Yes,  Ann,  that's  it." 

"The  fears  and  anxieties  of  an  adopted  mother 
if  he  lives,  and  just  the  amount  of  grief  an  adopted 
mother  might  be  supposed  to  feel  if  he  dies." 

"Yes,  Ann." 

"'East  Lynne.'   Madame  Vine,"  Ann  said. 

Claudia  smiled  through  her  own  tears.  Ann  was 
quite  human  now.  She  was  not  going  to  do  anything 
foolish. 

Poor  little  Johnny.  Improvement  or  no,  he  was 
pretty  bad.  He  was  like  some  little  sick  animal,  or 


256  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

some  little  sick  bird,  the  beating  of  whose  pulses  is 
visible.  He  lay,  wrapped  in  shawls  on  Poulton's  lap, 
breathing  fast  —  breathing  short  —  and  now  and 
then  giving  a  little  cough.  His  cheeks  were  flushed. 
His  eyes  were  neither  quite  open  nor  quite  shut. 

The  sight  of  him  wrung  Claudia's  heart.  What, 
then,  must  it  be  to  Ann!  Yet,  if  she  had  still  feared 
for  Ann,  the  sadness  of  the  picture  would  have  held 
its  own  reassurance,  for  so  pitiful  was  the  sight  of  the 
little  child  that  Ann,  she  would  have  perceived, 
might  safely,  if  she  must,  have  shown  her  deepest 
feelings.  Ann  took  Johnny  on  to  her  lap  from 
Poulton's. 

Claudia,  confident  as  she  was,  turned  away. 

In  the  night,  when  Poulton  had  with  difficulty 
been  persuaded  to  take  the  few  hours'  sleep  she 
must  need  so  badly,  Ann  sat  by  the  nursery  fire 
with  the  little  child  in  her  arms,  and  Claudia  sat 
beside  her.  They  talked  in  low  tones,  or  they  were 
silent.  But,  though  the  strain  of  anxiety  was  upon 
them,  there  was  nothing  dreadful  now  in  their  speech 
or  their  silence.  Something  akin  to  contentment 
held  them  both,  and  held  them  together.  Claudia 
had  never  felt  so  near  to  Ann,  never  felt  Ann  to  be 
so  near  to  her.  Ann,  with  her  child  at  her  heart, 
anguished  for  his  suffering,  but  there  to  minister  to 
him,  knew  some  sort  of  happiness  in  all  her  sorrow. 

"My  little  boy,"  she  murmured,  "my  little  son." 
She  had  him  close.  She  was  trying  to  give  her  life  to 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  257 

him,  Claudia  trying  in  her  own  way  to  give  hers  to 
Ann. 

Sometimes  Johnny  would  stir.  He  would  clench 
his  little  hands,  and  move  his  head  from  side  to  side. 
Then,  perhaps,  would  come  the  cough,  or  a  little 
choking  sound.  Ann  and  Claudia  each  held  her  own 
breath  till  he  got  his.  Ann  would  raise  him. 

The  frightening  moment  would  pass.  The  muscles 
of  the  two  watchers  would  relax.  The  clock,  and 
Ann's  watch,  which  lay  on  a  table  beside  her,  would 
seem  to  resume  their  ticking. 

Sometimes  there  would  be  a  knock  at  the  door 
and  Claudia  would  rise  and  go  over  on  tiptoe  —  on 
tiptoe  rather  because  it  was  the  middle  of  the  night 
than  because  her  light  footfalls  could  have  dis- 
turbed Johnny  —  and  would  whisper  to  whichever 
of  the  anxious  servants  it  might  be  who  had  come 
for  tidings,  or  to  see  if  anything  was  wanted.  Noth- 
ing was  wanted,  but  it  was  good  to  know  of  the 
anxiety. 

The  nursery-maid  came,  Z£lie,  who  had  arrived 
in  the  course  of  the  evening,  and,  severally,  two  of 
the  housemaids.  At  three  o'clock  there  was  a  fifth 
knock.  Ann  looked  up  from  Johnny's  face  which  she 
was  observing  closely.  Claudia  tiptoed  once  more 
to  the  door  and  opened.  Mrs.  Piper  herself.  Mrs. 
Piper  in  a  pink  flannel  dressing-gown  —  because  she 
was  so  anxious  and  could  not  sleep. 

Mrs.  Piper  was  admitted. 

"Come  in,  Mrs.  Piper,"  Ann  called  to  her,  and 


258  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

when  it  was  Mrs.  Piper  who  tiptoed,  Claudia  walked 
in  the  ordinary  way. 

"How  is  he  going  on,  'm?  I  felt  I  must  see."  She 
bent  over  the  child. 

Ann  and  Claudia  hung  upon  what  she  should  say. 

"Not  so  flushed,"  she  said,  "and,  surely,  'm, 
breathing  freer?" 

"  You  think  so?"  Ann  said.  "I've  been  thinking 
that,  wanting  to  let  myself  think  it,  for  some  mo- 
ments. Claudia,  I  do  think  he  is.  Look,  he  is  n't 
breathing  so  fast." 

Encouragement  had  come  into  the  room  with 
Mrs.  Piper.  Ann  felt  it.  Claudia  felt  it.  Claudia 
sent  a  thought  flying  to  Coram  at  Brighton. 

"You  do  think  so?"  Ann  said  to  the  pink  flannel 
dressing-gown,  and  to  something  else  which  was 
vaguely  unfamiliar  in  Mrs.  Piper's  appearance. 

"Yes,  'm,  I'm  sure  of  it.  Altogether  and  easier." 

It  was  not  only  an  opinion,  but  it  came  from  out- 
side. 

"He's  going  to  live,"  Ann  said. 

"Of  course  he's  going  to  live,"  said  Claudia. 

"I  think  you're  all  helping  him,"  Ann  said,  un- 
steadily. 

Silence  settled  down  on  the  house  after  Mrs. 
Piper's  visit.  There  had  been  silence  before,  but  this 
was  a  deeper  silence.  It  was  like  the  silence  thut 
comes  when  snow  is  falling  and  that  you  feel  will  not 
be  broken.  There  would  be  no  more  visits  now  till 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  259 

Poulton  came  back  at  six  o'clock.  The  room  seemed 
to  shut  itself  off  from  all  the  other  rooms.  Claudia 
made  up  the  fire.  Ann  watched  her  putting  on  the 
coal  lump  by  lump. 

"I  never  knew  it  was  a  front,"  Claudia  said,  lay- 
ing down  the  tongs. 

Ann  was  astray. 

"Oh,  Piper,"  she  said  after  a  moment.  "Yes,  a 
front.  I  don't  know  that  I  did  either.  I  suppose  I 
never  thought  about  it." 

She  thought  about  it  now. 

"Of  course,  if  I  had,  I  must  have  known,"  Ann 
said,  as  if  there  had  been  no  interval.  "It  hasn't 
changed  in  all  the  years.  It  has  n't  grown  thinner. 
It  has  n't  grown  grey.  Piper  must  be  between  sixty 
and  seventy." 

Claudia  nodded  thoughtfully. 

Presently  Ann  added:  "So  that's  what  it  was!" 

Claudia  said,  "Yes?" 

"The  difference,"  Ann  said.  "Why  she  looked  so 
odd.  I  thought  it  was  the  dressing-gown." 

"No,  the  front,"  Claudia  said.  "That  was  what 
was  so  significant." 

Nothing  further  was  said  for  the  moment.  Claudia 
set  about  preparing  Johnny's  food,  which  had  to  be 
administered  every  two  hours.  She  warmed  it  over 
a  spirit  lamp.  Ann,  rocking  Johnny,  listened  to  the 
soft  hissing  of  the  flame. 

Johnny  was  better,  certainly  Johnny  was  better. 
If  only  in  the  way  that,  this  time,  he  fought  against 


260  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

his  food,  he  showed  himself  better.  Before  he  had 
submitted.  His  'goodness,'  which  was  unnerving, 
had  been  the  measure  of  his  illness.  Now  he  turned 
his  head  this  way  and  that,  pushed,  cried.  But  at 
last  he  was  fed,  or,  at  any  rate,  what  he  had  swal- 
lowed was  held  to  be  enough.  He  lay  crying  then  in 
Ann's  lap  and  Ann  rocked  him,  sang  to  him,  soothed 
him.  She  smiled  at  Claudia  when  at  length  —  at 
very  long  length  —  he  slept. 

"Won't  you  go  and  lie  down,  Claudia?  He'll  be 
all  right  now.  And  I  shall  be  all  right." 

"  No,  Ann,  thank  you.  I 'm  not  a  bit  tired.  Why 
should  I  be?" 

"You  must  be  worn  out." 

Claudia  thought  of  another  night  when  she  had 
watched  with  Ann,  and  when  she  had,  indeed,  been 
worn  out. 

She  shook  her  head. 

"You  wouldn't  lie  down,  yourself?"  she  said. 
"Trust  him  to  me?  I'd  promise  to  call  you  if  I  was 
the  least  uneasy." 

But  Ann  in  turn  shook  hers. 

Another  hour  passed.  Johnny  was  sleeping  quietly. 

Claudia,  moving  noiselessly,  made  some  tea.  She 
brought  a  cup  to  Ann.  Something  dissolved  in  Ann, 
the  last  remnant  of  hardness.  She  drew  Claudia's 
face  down  to  hers,  as  once  she  had  bent  hers  to 
Claudia's. 

"I  was  so  horrid  in  the  train,"  she  whispered. 

"Oh,  stuff!"  Claudia  said  softly,  her  face  against 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  261 

Ann's.  A  moment  or  two  passed.  Then:  "Drink 
your  tea,"  she  said. 

They  drank  their  tea  in  silence,  but  Claudia  knew 
that  Ann  had  more  to  say  and  that  she  herself  was 
waiting.  The  silence  lasted  some  minutes. 

"I  was  more  horrid  than  you  knew,"  Ann  said. 
"I  can  only  think  now  that  I  was  n't  in  my  proper 
senses." 

She  bent  over  Johnny  and  then  raised  her  face. 
"I  wanted  to  hurt  —  myself  —  but  also  I  just 
wanted  to  hurt.  I  'd  made  up  my  mind  that  if  I 
found  my  baby  dead,  I'd  acknowledge  him  then 
and  there,  proclaim  myself,  pull  Redmayne  down 
about  my  ears." 

Claudia  nodded. 

"Insane!  Stupid!"  Ann  said.  "I  see  that  now. 
Childish !  I  could  n't  even  have  done  it.  It  would  n't 
have  been  possible,  for  I  could  n't  have  proclaimed 
myself  without  proclaiming  some  one  else,  and  how 
was  I  to  have  done  that?" 

"Yes,  I  saw  that  you  couldn't  really,"  Claudia 
said. 

"Of  course  I  could  n't,"  said  Ann. 

"But  you  made  me  afraid,  all  the  same,"  said 
Claudia.  "I  admit  that,  Ann,  though  I  won't  let 
you  say  you  were  horrid.  The  danger  was  that  you 
might  have  committed  yourself  before  you  saw  what 
it  would  entail.  If  just  for  one  moment  you  had 
lost  your  head!  Do  you  see?" 

"You  need  n't  be  afraid  any  more,"  Ann  said. 


262  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

There  was  a  long  pause  after  that.  Ann  looked 
down  again  at  Johnny.  If  he  had  died!  The  despair 
which  had  held  her  in  its  grip  on  the  journey,  and 
which  she  had  visited  upon  Claudia,  was  past,  but 
black  as  her  mood  had  been  —  perverse,  mad,  bad! 
—  even  now  she  could  understand  it.  As  she  looked 
at  the  sleeping  child  and  knew  him  to  be  restored  to 
her,  she  could  certainly  understand  it.  He  for  her. 
His  life  for  her.  That  was  how  she  must  have 
thought  of  Johnny's  death  if  he  had  died.  No  escape 
for  her  from  that  if  he  had  died,  because  once  — 
before  he  was  born,  that  was  —  his  death,  as  she 
had  perceived  all  too  well,  and  as  Claudia  must 
have  perceived  also,  would,  indeed,  have  been  a 
solution.  Oh,  she  understood  her  despair  well 
enough,  if,  thank  God,  it  was  past.  She  put  the 
remembrance  of  it  from  her. 

She  looked  up.  Claudia  seemed  to  have  put  the 
remembrance  of  it  from  her  also.  She  was  speaking. 
She  had  gone  back  to  Piper.  Ann  began  to  hear 
what  she  was  saying. 

"Up  out  of  her  bed  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  If 
that  had  been  all.  But  without  her  front.  I  don't 
suppose  any  one  this  side  of  the  baize  door  has  ever 
seen  her  without  it  before." 

It  was  Claudia  now  who  seemed  as  if  she  had  not 
done;  it  was  Ann  who  waited. 

"If  we'd  wanted  proof  —  which  we  didn't .  .  . 
But  it's  wonderful.  Ann,  do  you  see  how  wonderful?' 
First  what  you've  done,  and  then  what  Johnny's 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  263 

done  for  himself.  Those  girls,  and  then  Piper.  If 
he'd  been  really  the  son  of  the  house  —  which  he 
is  .  .  ." 

She  blazed  suddenly. 

"Ann,  they'll  let  him  stand  for  the  son  of  the 
house.  They're  ready.  They  want  to.  It's  for  you 
to  complete  it.  Complete  it!  It  lies  with  you.  Of 
course,  I  know  you  can  never  really  do  that  —  any 
more  than  you  could  really  proclaim  yourself  if 
you  wanted  to.  There'll  always  be  one  thing  that 
can't  be  done  for  him  now.  But  he's  going  to  live, 
and  there  is  something  that  can  be  done  —  that 
you  can  do.  Ann,  Ann  —  Oh,  how  shall  I  put  this? 
—  there's  a  way  of  happiness  yet  if  you'll  only  take 
it.  Here 's  what  I  mean :  whatever  it  costs  you,  what- 
ever it  costs  your  pride,  one  of  these  days  you'll 
have  to  give  Johnny  his  father." 


CHAPTER  X 

NOT  wholly  ingenuous?  But  so  very  nearly! 
Johnny  would  benefit,  if  it  was  Ann  primarily  (and 
Romance)  that  Claudia  was  thinking  of  —  if  (though 
she  was  not  ready  quite  to  admit  this)  it  was,  indeed, 
Coram  himself  that  she  was  thinking  of.  Johnny 
would  benefit.  No  boy  ought  to  be  denied  a  father's 
care  —  even  though  his  circumstances  might  be  such 
as  to  prevent  his  ever  knowing  that  his  father  was 
his  father.  Besides,  Claudia  believed  in  Coram,  in 
spite  of  the  uncanny  accuracy  of  her  guesses  about 
him.  It  was  because  of  her  guesses  about  him  that 
she  did  believe  in  him.  That,  too,  was  a  point  —  was 
the  point,  perhaps.  Ann's  happiness  was  with 
him.  Johnny's  happiness,  every  possible  reservation 
made,  was  with  him.  Johnny's  happiness  was  with 
them  both.  Not  disingenuous,  therefore,  though 
not  wholly  ingenuous. 

She  —  though,  as  they  talked  till  six  o'clock 
brought  Poulton  back  to  beam  over  the  improve- 
ment in  Johnny,  one  might  have  supposed  that 
there  would  have  been  nothing  left  to  say  —  she  did 
not  say  that  she  had  seen  Coram.  Not  when  a  week 
was  past,  and  Johnny  on  the  highroad  to  recovery, 
had  she  allowed  herself  to  say  that  she  had  seen 
Coram.  She  might,  to  the  extent  that  we  have  wit- 
nessed,  use  Johnny's  illness  for  her  own  purposes, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  265 

but  she  had  no  intention  of  using  it  in  the  final 
resort,  no  thought,  that  is,  of  effecting  a  reconcilia- 
tion, a  bringing-together  of  the  estranged  or  the  mis- 
understanding, by  any  such  obvious  means  as  the 
appeal  of  the  sick  bed  of  a  little  child.  The  artist 
in  her  showed  itself  there.  She  did  not  forget  that, 
as  far  as  Coram  was  concerned,  there  was  no  little 
child.  Ann's  secret,  moreover,  was  safe  with  her. 
Her  letter  having  miscarried,  her  part,  with  regard 
to  the  existence  of  a  child,  was  done.  It  was  for  Ann 
to  enlighten  him  if  she  chose,  or,  if  she  chose,  never 
to  enlighten  him  at  all.  For  him  Johnny  was  Johnny 
Smith;  and  Johnny  Smith,  like  "Tom  Jones"  (whose 
Life,  all  the  same — and  Adventures — you  were  hardly 
supposed  in  those  decorous  times  to  have  read!) 
was  a  foundling.  But  she  had  prepared  the  way, 
given  Ann  something  to  think  about,  an  idea  to  turn 
over  in  her  mind,  to  get  accustomed  to  as  an  idea, 
and  that  was  as  far  as  she  could  go  for  the  moment. 

She  wrote  to  Coram,  temporizing;  and  waited. 

She  half  wished  that  Coram  would  come  down  on 
his  own  account;  and  waited. 

Not  till  she  saw  that  Ann's  mind  was  at  peace  did 
she  allow  herself  to  speak. 

"Ann,"  she  said,  "if  Mr.  Coram  came  back  what 
would  you  do?" 

They  were  in  the  garden.  Ann  had  some  snow- 
drops which  she  had  picked,  in  her  hand. 

She  looked  at  Claudia  quickly,  then  at  the  flowers, 
and  then  back  at  Claudia. 


266  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"How  do  you  mean,  Claudia?  —  what  I  should 
do." 

"Would  you  see  him?" 

Ann  did  not  answer.  She  looked  again  at  the 
flowers  in  her  hand,  rather,  now,  as  if  she  did  not 
know  what  they  were,  or  how  they  came  to  be  there, 
and  then  looked  again  at  Claudia. 

"Why  do  you  ask  me?"  she  said  at  last.  "How 
can  I  say?  I  don't  know." 

A  snowdrop  fell  from  the  bunch.  She  stooped 
and  picked  it  up.  "Oh,"  she  said,  "need  we  discuss 
it?" 

"Ann,  dear,  we  must." 

"Why?" 

Claudia  told  her. 

There  was  a  seat  near  by.  Ann  moved  to  it  and 
sat  down. 

"Brighton!"  Ann  said,  —  "Brighton!" 

It  was  as  if  she  seized  upon  what  she  could 
grasp. 

Oh,  Claudia  thought  to  herself  suddenly,  if  they 
also  could  but  have  been  still  at  Brighton!  It  would 
have  been  so  much  easier  there.  She  lost  herself 
for  a  moment  or  two  in  thinking  how  much  easier. 

Ann  could  have  met  him,  or  kept  out  of  his  way. 
Ann  could  have  been  allowed  to  meet  him  by  acci- 
dent. If  she,  Claudia,  had  done  nothing,  the  chances 
were  that  Ann  must  have  met  him.  It  would  have 
been  better,  perhaps,  that  she  had  so  met  him  in  thd 
first  instance  —  unprepared,  without  time  to  con- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  267 

sider  what  she  should  do.  Then  would  have  come 
Claudia's  part.  If  only,  then,  it  had  been  Ann  in- 
stead of  her  who  had  met  him !  But  she,  Claudia, 
had  not  exactly  met  him.  She  had  seen  him,  fol- 
lowed him.  Ann,  if  she  had  seen  him,  would  cer- 
tainly not  have  followed  him.  It  was  as  likely 
as  not  that  her  impulse  would  have  been  to  flee 
Brighton.  But  there  again  was  where  Claudia  could 
have  stepped  in.  That  would  have  been  her  chance. 
Oh,  why,  why  were  they  not  at  Brighton? 

Ann  seemed,  for  the  moment  or  two  in  which 
Claudia  was  thus  occupied,  to  have  no  questions  to 
ask.  None,  at  least,  came  from  her,  and  Claudia  had 
expected  so  many. 

"He  wants  to  see  you,"  Claudia  said.  "Oh,  Ann, 
do  help  me.  I  could  n't  tell  you  that  day  because  of 
Johnny.  I  came  straight  back  to  tell  you  and  you 
had  just  had  the  telegram.  I  could  n't  tell  you  in 
the  train.  I  could  n't  tell  you  while  Johnny  was  ill. 
I  came  as  near  to  telling  you  as  I  dared.  I  had  to 
wait.  I  see,  now,  that  that  makes  it  look  as  if  I 
had  been  plotting."  She  gave  a  little  laugh.  "  But  I 
have  n't,"  she  said. 

Ann  neither  assented  nor  dissented. 

"You  do  believe  me,  don't  you?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  Ann  said  absently. 

"She  might  help  me,"  Claudia  thought. 

"He  wants  to  see  me?"  Ann  said. 

"Practically  he  asked  me  if  you  would  see  him. 
I  had  to  help  him  to  that.  It  was  very  difficult  for 


268  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

both  of  us.  Neither  of  us  knew  how  much  the  other 
knew,  or  how  much  the  other  might  be  supposed  to 
know.  There  was  no  firm  ground  anywhere.  One 
thing  I  can  tell  you  at  once.  He  knows  that  you 
Ve  adopted  a  child.  I  made  sure  of  that.  And  he 
has  n't,  of  course,  a  suspicion." 

Something  of  the  strained  look  left  Ann's  face. 

"  I  had  to  assume  —  we  both  had  —  that  each  of 
us  knew  that  there  was  an  uncertainty  as  to  your 
seeing  him.  That  did  n't  commit  either  of  us.  So  it 
could  n't  commit  you.  You  had  forbidden  him  to 
write.  I,  on  my  part,  might  be  supposed  to  know 
that  there  had  been,  at  least,  some  sort  of  check  in 
your  ordinary  relations." 

"There  was  certainly  that,"  Ann  said.  But  she 
did  not  speak  bitterly. 

She  laid  the  snowdrops  down  beside  her  on  the 
seat,  where,  fond  as  she  was  of  flowers,  she  forgot 
them.  Claudia  found  them  there,  a  little  bunch  of 
corpses,  the  next  day. 

What  was  she  thinking? 

Some  pigeons  were  on  the  lawn.  Claudia  watched 
them.  She  found  herself  watching  two  particular 
birds;  one  of  them  followed  another.  The  following 
bird  was  a  male,  the  followed  a  female.  How  persis- 
tent he  was,  but  equally  persistent  she!  He  would 
follow  her  with  little  rapid  pink  steps.  Rookety- 
koo !  He  would  get  in  front  of  her,  bowing,  his  ches*k 
puffed  out.  Always  she  eluded  him.  When  he  got 
in  front  of  her,  she  would  turn  aside.  Sometimes  she 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  269 

would  turn  right  about  and  walk  quickly  in  the  op- 
posite direction,  pecking  at  food  on  her  way  to  show 
how  unconcerned  she  was.  He  always  followed  her, 
close,  close  upon  her  pink  heels,  bowing,  bowing, 
rookety-koo-ing.  Sometimes  they  would  appear  to 
set  to  each  other,  like  dancers  in  a  quadrille,  but 
she,  at  such  moments,  was  making  feints  in  this 
direction  or  that,  and  he,  anticipating  her,  barring 
her  path.  Always  she  got  away.  Ultimately,  as,  of 
course,  she  knew  in  her  little  deep  heart,  she  would 
not  get  away.  But  her  own  ultimate  surrender  was 
what  she  counted  upon.  He  would  not  tire.  That 
was  why  she  might  try  him,  tantalize  him.  She  was 
quite,  quite  safe.  Little  warm  eggs  one  of  these  days 
in  the  soft  warm  nest! 

If  only  human  ways  were  as  simple!  Ann,  in  her 
innocence,  had  thought  that  they  were.  That  sup- 
position indirectly  —  but  also  directly,  indeed  — 
had  landed  poor  Ann  where  she  was. 

What  was  Ann  thinking? 

It  would  have  been  difficult  for  Ann,  in  the  first 
few  moments  which  followed  Claudia's  announce- 
ment, to  have  said  what  she  was  thinking,  or  even 
feeling.  She  could  not  have  said,  indeed,  whether 
she  was  feeling  anything.  She  had  asked  no  ques- 
tions because  for  the  time  she  had  no  questions 
to  ask.  Her  mind  seemed  to  have  settled  into  some 
little  recess,  from  which  it  listened,  as  from  be- 
hind doors  or  curtains  or  barricades,  to  Claudia's 


270  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

explanations.  But  there,  shut  away,  it,  if  not  she, 
was  thinking.  It  was  her  ambushed  mind  that 
was  thinking,  not  she.  Brighton.  He  had  been  there 
while  as  yet  she  had  been  there.  He  had  seen  Claudia. 
They  had  talked.  Claudia  had  seen  him  face  to  face. 
Claudia  had  talked  with  him.  Claudia  had  seen  his 
face.  She,  Ann,  had  seen  it  once  very  near  to  her 
own.  She  had  seen  tears  in  his  eyes.  Claudia  had 
not  seen  tears  in  his  eyes.  Perhaps  nobody  else  had. 
Claudia  was  telling  her  that  she  was  not  plotting. 
Ann  was  not  accusing  her  of  plotting.  But  Claudia 
had  said  an  extraordinary  thing  that  night  .  .  .  She 
had  said  that  Ann  must  give  Johnny  his  father  .  .  . 

Ann  heard  herself  saying,  "He  wants  to  see  me?" 
She  said  that,  but  the  words  even  yet  did  not  mean 
very  much.  You  said  words  sometimes.  She  did 
not  know  whether  she  wanted  to  see  him.  She  had 
Johnny.  Johnny  was  all  that  mattered.  But  Johnny 
was  his,  too. 

That  was  n't  true.  Johnny  was  hers  only. 

Claudia  was  telling  her,  as  if  to  make  her  mind 
easy,  that  he  knew  of  Johnny,  but  also  that  he  did 
not  know  of  him.  That  did  somehow  make  her  mind 
easier  in  its  hiding-place.  Her  mind  peered,  as  it 
were,  out  of  its  hiding-place.  What  was  there  to 
shrink  from?  Was  it  herself  that  she  was  afraid  of? 
Her  mind  emerged  into  the  open.  There,  the  sense  of 
what  Claudia  had  been  saying  to  her  was  suddenly 
clear.  Timothy  Coram  was  not  the  other  side  of  the 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  271 

world.  She  had  longed  to  see  him.  She  might  see 
him  if  she  would. 

She  became  conscious  of  the  day;  of  the  garden; 
of  Claudia,  the  sun  on  her  shining  hair. 

Now  she  wanted  to  ask  questions.  She  wanted  to 
ask  so  many  that  she  did  not  know  where  to  be- 
gin. She  wanted  to  know  how  he  looked.  Whether 
he  had  changed.  Oh,  very  much  whether  he 
had  changed.  She  wanted  to  hear  that  he  had 
not  changed,  and  she  wanted  to  hear  that  he 
had  changed,  also.  She  did  not  want  him  to  have 
changed  much.  She  wanted  to  hear  that  he  was  well 
and  happy.  But  she  also  wanted  to  hear  that  he 
was  not  quite  happy. 

It  was  as  if  Claudia  had  divined. 

"I  did  n't  feel  as  if  his  wanderings  had  been  en- 
tirely a  success,"  Claudia  said.  "He  did  n't  say  so. 
He  did  n't  say  much  about  them  at  all.  He  just  gave 
me  the  impression  of  having  been  homesick.  He  said 
he  had  been.  He  spoke  of  his  little  house.  But  I  felt 
it  before  that.  I  felt  it  at  once." 

Bulkley,  getting  his  impression  from  letters  only, 
had  said  something  of  the  same  sort. 

Ann's  heart  leapt  within  her.  She  felt  as  Eliza- 
beth may  have  felt  when  Mary  came  to  her. 

' '  Tell  me  about  him,"  she  said,  her  eyes  shining  like 
Claudia's  hair. 

"I  meddled  once,"  Claudia  warned  her. 

"Oh,  tell  me,"  Ann  said. 

11 1  still  think—  " 


272  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Tell  me,  tell  me." 

"Well,  I  still  think  it's  you." 

"If  I  thought  so,  I  should  think  I  was  'blessed 
among  women."1 

Claudia  was  holding  her  hands.  Her  hold  on  them 
tightened  suddenly. 

"I  may  have  to  remind  you  of  that,"  she  said. 

"Of  what?" 

"  What  you  Ve  just  said.    'Blessed  among  wo- 


men.' ' 


"What  do  you  mean?" 

"Nothing,  Ann." 

She  was  smiling.   She  would  not  explain. 

"  I  may  not  have  to,"  she  said,  "but  I  may.  Time 
enough  then.  Listen  to  the  larks.  Did  you  ever 
hear  such  a  chorus?  And  I  Ve  eaten  larks.  Is  n't 
that  horrible?  I  never  will  again.  I  think  he's  come 
back  because  he  could  n't  stay  away.  I  am  meddling, 
you  see." 

"I've  been  thinking  of  him  all  the  time,"  Ann 
said.  "I've  been  thinking  of  him  when  I  would  n't 
let  myself  think  of  him.  When  I  did  n't  think  of 
him.  Oh,  I  admit  it.ik 

"I  knew,"  Claudia  said. 

Three  specks  on  the  blue  sky  and  a  very  flood  of 
song.  Already  the  haze  of  green  over  the  trees.  Soon, 
soon  the  thrust,  the  bursting  of  the  buds,  the  great 
liberation.  4 

"He's  been  thinking  of  you,"  Claudia  was  saying. 
"I  believe  he's  been  thinking  of  you  ever  since. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  273 

There 's  a  chain  of  thoughts  of  you  round  the  world 
this  minute." 

Oh,  Ann  said  again,  if  she  could  think  that! 
Claudia  thought  it. 

"  I  was  n't  wrong,"  Claudia  was  saying,  —  "even 
that  time  when  I  did  the  awful  mischief  —  the  un- 
speakable mischief.  What  I  said  was  true,  though 
he  may  n't  have  known  it  as  true.  I  knew,  when  I 
saw  him  again,  that  it  was  true.  I "  —  she  paused 
—  "just  knew." 

"But  he  went,"  Ann  said.  "Why,  if  it  was  true, 
did  he  go?" 

"Ask  him." 

Ann  shook  her  head. 

"Anyway,  you'll  see  him?" 

"How  am  I  to?" 

"  If  he  stayed  with  Mr.  Bulkley  the  natural  thing 
would  be  that  he  should  come  to  see  you." 

"Oh,  yes,  if  he  stayed  there." 

"That's  where  he  would  stay,  unless  he  came 
here." 

Ann  felt  herself  grow  white. 

"He  could  n't  come  here,"  she  said. 

"No,"  Claudia  said,  still  smiling.  "I'm  not  sug- 
gesting it.  There  are  plenty  of  places  he  might  go 
to.  Cloistron.  Lady  Mallard  would  like  to  see  him 
again,  I  dare  say." 

"Why  should  he  go  there?" 

" Fotheringham.  Lord  Fotheringham  wouldn't 
object." 


274  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Why  do  you  say  that,  Claudia?  Why  should 
Lord  Fotheringham  object?" 

But  there  were  things,  it  seemed,  that  Claudia 
would  say  which  she  would  not  explain.  She  laughed 
and  kissed  her. 

"There'll  be  no  talk  of  Cloistron  or  Fothering- 
ham," she  said.  "He'll  go,  of  course,  to  Mr.  Bulkley. 
He'll  be  staying  there  —  in  what  he  thinks  of  as  his 
old  home  —  when  the  moment  comes  for  the  ques- 
tion which  you  will  ask  him." 

"The  moment  won't  come,"  said  Ann.  "I  shan't 
ask  him." 

But  Claudia  knew  better. 

"The  moment  will  come,  Ann,  and  you  will  ask 
the  question.  You'll  say  just  as  you  said  just  now: 
1  But  you  went  away.  Why  did  you  go? '  If  he  can't 
tell  you,  and  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  he  may  n't 
be  able  to,  come  to  me.  It's  just  possible  that,  then, 
I  may  be  able  to  tell  you." 


CHAPTER  XI 

CORAM  was  coming  to  Lower  Redmayne. 

Bulkley  told  Ann,  but  Ann  knew  before  that,  for 
Claudia,  who  had  written  to  Coram,  had  heard  from 
him. 

"To-morrow,"  Bulkley  said  —  as  if  the  word  were 
not  already  ringing  in  Ann's  ears!  "Mrs.  Somers 
is  doing  out  the  room  now  —  his  old  room.  If  I  had 
n't  been  first  in  saying  that  he  was  to  have  it,  I 
think  she  would  have  demanded  it." 

Ann  thought  of  Mrs.  Somers  preparing  the  room 
for  him;  airing  his  sheets  (they  would  smell  of 
lavender);  making  his  bed.  It  was  just  like  Mr. 
Bulkley  to  turn  out  of  his  own  room  for  him.  She 
hoped  Mrs.  Somers  would  not  move  too  many  of  his 
things.  She  pictured  her  moving  things,  emptying 
drawers  —  emptying  more  drawers  than  could  be 
needed.  She  thought  of  Coram  protesting.  He  would 
protest.  And  Bulkley  would  laugh !  And  Mrs.  Som- 
ers would  bridle.  They  would  all  laugh.  For  there 
was  no  excuse.  There  were  plenty  of  other  rooms. 
Coram  would  say,  "It's  too  bad!"  Bulkley  would 
say,  "Nonsense,  man,  why  shouldn't  I?"  Coram 
would  persist  ("Upon  my  word,  it's  too  bad!")  — 
would  be  a  little  bit  distressed  even.  But  it  was  just 
like  Mr.  Bulkley.  How  much  she  liked  him!  She 
had  at  once  a  sort  of  feeling  that  she  had  neglected 


276  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

him.  Why  had  she  never  accorded  him  his  pred- 
ecessor's weekly  half-hour?  The  weekly  half-hour 
had  been  entirely  unnecessary?  The  weekly  half- 
hour  had  been  accorded  to  the  man,  not  the  agent? 
All  went  smoothly  without  it.  It  seemed  to  have 
been  accorded  to  the  man.  More  light  for  her  upon 
the  deep  places  in  her  soul !  It  had  been  accorded  to 
the  man! 

Shame  upon  her!  Was  she  only  now  beginning  to 
know  herself?  And  here  was  Mr.  Bulkley  turning 
out  of  his  room  that  he  might  give  of  his  best  to  his 
friend. 

Vague  tendernesses  stirred  in  her. 

"When  do  you  think  of  marrying?"  she  said  to 
him. 

Now,  what  on  earth  made  her  say  that?  She 
managed  not  to  blush  for  an  impulsiveness  which 
was  really  —  really  and  truly,  as  she  said  to  herself 
—  not  a  bit  like  her.  She  managed  to  look  at  him 
with  steady,  rather  quizzical  eyes.  So  she  retrieved 
her  blunder.  A  young  aunt,  who  might  have  said 
just  what  she  said  to  a  nephew  of  about  her  own 
age,  might  have  looked  at  him  just  as  she  was  look- 
ing. 

"How  did  you  know?"  he  said. 

He  was  very  pleasant  to  look  at  as  she  saw  him 
freshly.  He  was  small-headed,  reddish.  He  was  not 
a  bit  good-looking,  but  his  face  crinkled  up  delight- 
fully when  he  smiled. 

"  I  did  n't  know,"  said  Ann.  "You  '11  have  to  for- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  277 

give  me.  I  was  thinking  of  all  the  nice  girls  there 
are." 

"She  lives  at  Winchester,"  said  Bulkley,  nodding. 
"Her  father  is  one  of  the  minor  Canons.  He  has  n't 
quite  given  his  consent." 

"The  usual  parents'  reasons?" 

Bulkley  laughed. 

"The  worldly  wisdom  of  a  very  good  churchman. 
He  married  himself,  I  may  say,  on  what  he  won't 
hear  of  our  marrying  on." 

"That's  why,"  said  Ann. 

"He  may  come  round.  He  allowed  a  sort  of  un- 
official engagement  when  I  got  my  unexpected  pro- 
motion to  Coram's  post.  I  'm  not  worrying.  She  is 
what  matters,  and  there  I  'm  safe.  The  nicest  of  all 
the  nice  girls,  Mrs.  Forrester." 

"I'm  sure  of  that,"  Ann  said,  "and,  may  I  add, 
one  of  the  luckiest?" 

"No,"  said  Bulkley;  "it's  I  who  am  lucky." 

"Two  lucky  people,  then,"  said  Ann.  "He  —  the 
Canon  —  has  named  some  sort  of  an  income?" 

"Oh,  he  says  — " 

"Are  you  very  far  short  of  what  he  says?" 

"  Between  us,  not  so  very.  We  both,  happily,  have 
something  of  our  own.  Another  year  or  so,  if  I  'm 
fortunate  enough  to  go  on  giving  satisfaction  here, 
will  see  us  within  —  well,  measurable  distance  of 
touching  it." 

"You  could  take  a  pupil." 

"Would  you  let  me?" 


278  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Mr.  Coram  had  one." 

"Ah,  he  had  been  here  for  years." 

"You're  going  to  be  here  for  years,  I  hope,  Mr. 
Bulkley." 

"May  I  think  that?" 

"I  want  you  to." 

She  would  not  hear  of  thanks.  The  thanks  were, 
she  said,  the  other  way. 

"What  should  I  have  done  without  you  when  Mr. 
Coram  left  me?" 

"He  would  n't  have  left  you,"  Bulkley  said. 

Ann  seemed  to  herself  to  be  back  with  something 
there.  She  did  not,  whatever  it  was,  follow  it  up.  She 
was  content  with  the  day's  contentment. 

"To-morrow,"  she  was  saying  to  herself.  "To- 
morrow. To-morrow." 

"Look  out  for  a  pupil,"  she  said  aloud.  "You 
would  get  one  easily.  And,  somehow,  we  must  con- 
trive to  soften  or  satisfy  your  Canon.  I  don't  like 
engagements  to  be  too  long." 

Bulkley  went  home  feeling  that  he  would  die  for  her. 

"To-morrow.  To-morrow,"  thought  Ann.  He 
was  arriving  in  the  morning,  and  she  took  that  to 
mean  that  she  should  see  him  in  the  afternoon.  In 
the  ordinary  course  he  would  surely  have  come  by 
the  train  by  which  she  and  Claudia  had  travelled. 
That  would  have  been  the  '  natural '  train  to  take  — 
a  train  which  left  Brighton  at  three  o'clock,  rather* 
than  a  train  which  started  at  nine,  and  to  catch 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  279 

which  he  would  have  to  rise  early  and  swallow  his 
breakfast  in  haste.  He  was  coming  to  her  hot-foot. 
The  intimation  could  mean  nothing  less  —  the 
mention  of  trains  at  all. 

She  would  be  ready  for  him.  She  would  be  wait- 
ing ... 

She  spent  the  rest  of  the  morning  with  Johnny. 
He  was  out  again  now,  and  Claudia  and  she,  Poulton 
within  hail,  pushed  his  perambulator  about  in  the 
sunshine.  He  crowed  and  he  wriggled  and  he  laughed. 
He  held  out  his  hands  for  things,  or  leaned,  bodily, 
across  his  strap  towards  what  or  whom  he  wanted. 
He  made  sounds  that  were  nearly  words;  that  might 
at  any  moment  now  become  words,  or  give  place  to 
words. 

Claudia  said,  "Ann,  he's  adorable." 

Any  one  would  have  wished  to  adopt  him.  Ann 
knew  what  she  meant.  It  was  true,  too.  She  might 
show  him  now  to  his  father,  if  she  would.  She  might, 
without  fear  or  misgiving,  though  he  was  not  five 
years  old  —  the  adoptable  age!  —  show  him  to  any 
one,  unchallenged,  unquestioned.  Would  the  day 
come  when  she  would  really  show  him  to  his  father? 
She  believed  that  that  day  would  come,  and  that  it 
was  even  at  hand.  She  set  herself  resolutely,  as  she 
had  borne  her  unhappiness,  to  bear  her  happiness. 

"This  time  last  year!"  she  said  to  Claudia. 

"We  won't  think  of  this  time  last  year,"  Claudia 
said  quickly. 


280  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

" But  somehow  I  can  now,"  Ann  said.  "He  will  be 
a  year  old  on  Sunday.  His  first  birthday." 

They  drove  in  to  Windlestone  that  afternoon. 
Ann  (since  the  morning)  had  business  to  do  at  Par- 
giter  and  Fosberry's.  While  she  was  in  there,  Claudia 
bought  a  woolly  ball  for  Johnny,  at  Miss  Blondin's. 
It  was  a  disappointment  that  Miss  Blondin,  to  whom, 
if  she  had  seen  her,  she  would  have  deemed  it  not 
less  than  expedient  to  give  the  news  of  Mr.  Coram's 
return,  chanced  to  be  out.  Miss  Blondin  would  have 
been  excited  over  the  news.  Not  only  back  in  Eng- 
land, but  expected  at  Lower  Redmayne!  There 
would,  indeed,  have  been  news  for  Miss  Blondin 
and  Miss  Blondin's  customers.  Claudia,  buying  the 
woolly  ball  for  Johnny's  birthday,  could  picture 
Miss  Blondin's  glowings.  Whipple  and  Piper  that 
morning  had  glowed  in  their  separate,  restrained 
ways.  Ann,  in  her  way,  in  spite  of  all  she  had  suf- 
fered was  glowing. 

Ann  was  glowing  when  she  came  out  of  Pargiter 
and  Fosberry's.  Mr.  Pargiter,  bareheaded,  accom- 
panied her  to  the  carriage  door.  He  bowed  to 
Claudia — who  would  have  hugged  herself  with  de- 
light if  she  could  have  known  why  his  bows  to  her 
were  so  stiff!  She,  in  her  innocence,  supposed  all  his 
bows  to  be  stiff,  like  himself. 

"You'll  be  amused  at  what  I've  been  doing,'' 
Ann  said,  when,  after  a  visit  to  the  toy  shop  in  view 
of  Johnny's  approaching  birthday,  they  were  on 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  281 

their  way  home.  "At  least,  you'll  be  amused  at  my 
reasons.  I  Ve  been  arranging  that  Mr.  Bulkley  shall 
have  a  rise  a  year  sooner  than  he  expects  it." 

"And  now  for  the  Why?"  said  Claudia. 

Ann,  of  course,  said  nothing  of  Mr.  Bulkley's  con- 
fidence to  her. 

"Out  of  his  very  bed,"  she  said.  "Think  of  it! 
That  Mr.  Coram  might  have  his  old  room.  And  I 
know  Mrs.  Somers  will  move  everything.  I  declare, 
Claudia,  it  touched  me  to  the  heart." 

Nothing  could  have  pleased  Claudia  more  than  such 
evidences.  Sentiment.  It  was  the  one  thing  need- 
ful. Everything  promised.  Everything  was  right. 
Ann's  face  was  set  towards  the  morrow,  and  Claudia's 
no  less.  She  felt  for  Ann's  hand  in  the  carriage  and 
held  it.  Now,  if  only  Coram  could  make  out  a  case 
for  himself.  No.  Not  that.  If  Ann  could  be  satisfied 
with  the  truth,  if  she  could  hear  the  truth,  accept 
it.  Once  she  did  accept  it,  all  would  be  well.  But 
could  she?  Would  she?  A  shattering  of  illusions  for 
such  as  Ann,  a  pulling-down  of  much  that  stood 
firm.  A  pulling-down  of  men,  a  pulling-down  of 
women  —  Ann  herself  amongst  them.  Could  she 
stand  that?  And  keep  her  faiths?  And  see  (as  a 
worldlier  Claudia  saw  —  a  Claudia  with  open  eyes) 
that  a  new  faith  must  rise  like  a  Phoenix  out  of  the 
ashes  of  the  old,  and  that  the  new  faith  would  be 
what  mattered?  Ann  just  did  not  know. 

"Oh,  Ann,"  Claudia  said  to  herself,  "don't  ask 


282  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

too  much.  Men  are  n't  saints.  Many,  many  women 
are  n't  saints  either.  You  realize  the  man's  appeal, 
but  you  don't  in  the  very  least  understand  what 
it  means.  That  is  why  what  happened  to  you  did 
happen  to  you.  You  Ve  only  to  look  at  this  man  to 
know  how  life  must  have  presented  itself  to  him. 
But  you  have  looked  at  him  without  knowing.  Try, 
try,  try  to  understand." 

With  all  the  auguries  propitious,  with  happi- 
ness in  the  air,  with  Johnny  well  and  Ann  glowing, 
Claudia  had  moments  when  she  was  frightened. 

"Try,"  she  said  again  to  herself,  but  apostrophiz- 
ing Ann.  "Try  to  understand.  Oh,  be  willing  to 
understand." 

Aloud  she  said,  "I've  always  liked  Mr.  Bulkley. 
I  always  thought  you  did  n't  half  see  enough  of 
him." 

"I  mean  to  see  ever  so  much  more  of  him  in 
future." 

The  night  came.  Ann,  as  once  before,  hardly  ex- 
pecting to  sleep,  slept.  She  awoke  in  the  morning  to 
another  beautiful  day.  Sunlight  edged  its  way  into 
her  bedroom  as  the  housemaid  drew  the  curtains  — 
to  pour  in  in  full  flood  as  the  blinds  behind  them  were 
drawn  up.  Through  the  open  window,  which  she 
told  her  not  to  close,  came  the  songs  of  birds.  They 
had  begun  their  songs  early  in  that  year  of  special . 
grace.  Soon  now  they  would  be  in  full  song.  Soon 
now  the  cuckoo  would  be  heard  again.  The  wood- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  283 

land  would  be  green  and  he  would  come  back,  and 
he  would  call,  here  from  a  copse,  there  from  a  copse, 
you  could  never  say  exactly  where,  but  the  spring 
would  throb  to  his  note  and  she  would  be  able  to 
listen.  Oh,  she  would  be  able  to  listen  this  year. 
Love-songs,  this  year,  love-songs.  She  would  be  able 
to  bear  them. 

Her  room  was  singing.  The  silver  and  the  glass  on 
her  toilet  table  were  singing  in  the  sun.  The  stop- 
per of  a  cut-glass  bottle  was  a  monstrous  flashing 
diamond  singing  to  the  new  day.  Some  anemones, 
red  and  purple  and  white  in  a  shining  bowl,  were  a 
chorus  of  praise  jubilant  as  the  song  of  larks.  Z6- 
lie  appeared  now  with  her  morning  tea,  and  Ann 
watched  her  as  she  bustled  silently  about,  a  trim, 
sturdy  figure.  She,  too,  had  an  air  of  singing. 

"A  morning  of  the  South,  eh,  Zelie?" 

Zelie  was  Provengale. 

"Truly,  Madame,  a  morning  of  the  South.  One 
would  say  the  summer  already." 

There  was  a  sky,  Zelie  said.  Blue  —  but  blue!  A 
sky  of  a  blueness!  She  meant,  perhaps,  that  such 
skies  were  rare  in  England.  They  were  not,  Ann 
thought,  smiling  contentedly;  but  if  they  were,  this 
one  was  appropriately  sent. 

"Yes,  blue,"  Ann  said,  looking  at  it  from  her  bed. 

"The  blue  of  the  robe  of  Our  Lady,"  Zelie  said. 
"And  what  will  Madame  wear?" 

Ann  drank  her  tea  and  sent  for  Johnny.  Zelie 
brought  him  to  her,  herself.  She  came  in  laughing, 


284  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

her  head  on  one  side,  Johnny,  gurgling  with  mischief, 
tugging  one  earring. 

"Ah,  ah,  ah,  polisson!  Ss'v!  Pauv'e  Zelie!  Un  va 
lui  arracher  1'oreille!  Oh,  le  petit  polisson!  Voila, 
Madame." 

Twenty  minutes  Ann  asked  for. 

Mother  and  son.  Twenty  happy  minutes.  It  was 
her  ears  now  that  Johnny  was  pulling  —  having 
learnt  a  new  and  delightful  game.  He  could  hurt, 
too,  he  was  so  strong.  Or  he  closed  his  little  fists 
about  the  two  long  thick  plaits  of  her  hair  —  and 
pulled  till  the  'Ah's*  and  the  indrawn  'Ss'vV  came 
from  her.  Or  he  stood  up  tottering  and  threw  himself 
down  upon  her.  She  kissed  his  neck,  burying  her 
face  in  his  shoulder. 
'  One  of  these  days!  One  of  these  days  .  .  . 

She  whispered  into  the  warm  hollow  where  her 
face  was  hidden :  — 

"Would  you  like  a  father,  Johnny,  —  a  father 
of  your  own?  Not  quite  as  other  little  boys  have 
fathers.  But  a  father  who  would  love  you  more,  per- 
haps, than  other  little  boys'  fathers,  and  who  would 
make  up  to  you  for  what  it  is  not  in  your  mother's 
power,  or  his,  ever  to  give  you.  Would  you?  " 

Johnny  did  n't  know.  He  wriggled  himself  free 
to  stagger  once  more  to  his  laughing  feet  and  throw 
himself  down. 

"Oh,  Johnny,  it  shall  be  made  up  to  you.  It  shall. 
It  shall." 

Twenty  happy  minutes. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  285 

The  dining-room  was  full  of  sunshine,  Claudia, 
quite  out  of  mourning  now  (and  ready,  when  Ann's 
affair  should  be  settled,  for  any  really  desirable  at- 
tack upon  her  widowhood),  wore  a  blue  dress.  Blue 
was  in  the  air,  Ann  said  to  herself,  as  she  kissed  her. 
But  she  had  no  fear  of  bolts;  Claudia,  as  she  saw 
Ann's  radiance,  none  either.  All  was  going  to  be 
well  upon  this  day  of  days. 

The  servants  trooped  in  to  prayers. 

Ann  read  part  of  the  hundred  and  seventh  Psalm. 

"0  that  men  would  therefore  praise  the  Lord  for  his 
goodness  ;  and  declare  the  wonders  that  he  doeth  for  the 
children  of  men!" 

For  the  sake  of  the  thirtieth  verse  she  had  chosen 
it,  but  it  was  with  this,  the  thirty-first  verse,  that 
she  ended.  She  was  very  happy. 

"Glory  be  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the 
Holy  Ghost ; 

"  4s  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall 
be,  world  without  end.  Amen." 

And  so  through  the  prayers  themselves,  praise 
sounding  and  resounding,  to  the  final  Grace  of  Our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  .  .  . 

It  was  then  that,  in  her  happiness  and  her  thank- 
fulness and  her  confidence  also,  she  remembered  the 
words  of  comfort  and  encouragement  which  had  been 
spoken  once  to  just  such  a  sinner  as,  at  the  bottom 
of  her  heart,  she  believed  herself  to  have  been.  The 
words  had  been  spoken  by  One  who  had  boundless 
understanding.  He  cast  no  stones.  A  new  thought 


286  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

came  to  her.  A  wider  light  shone  upon  his  under- 
standing. It  was  not  so  much  (thus  she  phrased  the 
thought  as  if  she  were  arguing)  —  not  so  much  that 
He  had  said, '  Neither  do  I  condemn  thee,'  as  that  He 
had  taken  it  for  granted  that,  of  those  present,  not 
one  was  in  a  position  to  cast  a  stone  .  .  . 

He  expected  nothing  but  humanness  of  human 
nature!  Human  nature  unredeemed,  of  course,  un- 
regenerate,  but  human  nature. 

Ann  rose  from  her  knees,  puzzling,  puzzled. 

Claudia,  if  she  could  have  known,  might  have 
asked  herself  whether  that  thought,  that  argument, 
though  she  had  not  had  the  good  fortune  to  think  of 
it,  was  not  hers  by  at  least  every  other  right!  If  she 
had  thought  of  it  —  and  if  she  had  to  argue  —  we 
may  be  sure  that  she  would  have  used  it.  It  would 
have  been  treasure  trove  to  her.  It  summed  up  all 
her  arguments. 


CHAPTER  XII 

LOWER  REDMAYNE  was  swept  and  garnished.  Mrs. 
Somers,  who  had  swept  and  garnished  it,  was  in  and 
out  of  the  room  she  thought  of  as  the  Master's  all  the 
morning.  The  Master  was,  of  course,  Mr.  Coram. 
Mr.  Bulkley,  though  she  liked  him  and  served  him 
very  faithfully,  had  never  been  more  than  the  Young 
Master.  Thus,  she  made  her  distinctions  which  were 
her  reservations.  It  is  to  be  feared  that,  from  the 
bedroom  which  she  was  preparing,  she  had  moved 
quite  as  much  as  Ann,  with  half-comic  dismay,  had 
anticipated.  To  leave  an  empty  wardrobe  and  empty 
chests  of  drawers  for  the  Master,  she  had  moved, 
indeed,  nearly  everything  —  justifying  such  thor- 
oughness to  herself  with  the  plea  that  the  Young 
Master  in  his  new  quarters  would  in  turn  need  his 
things  about  him.  Bulkley  on  his  part,  amused  in- 
wardly, had  made  no  protest.  Mrs.  Somers  liked 
doing  it.  And  it  would  be  Mrs.  Somers  who  would 
move  everything  back. 

The  fire  was  laid  ready  to  light  in  the  evening. 
The  boards  shone  with  beeswax  and  turpentine ;  the 
old  furniture  shone ;  the  brasses.  The  vases  of  daffo- 
dils were  the  final  touch.  This  added,  Mrs.  Somers 
surveyed  the  scene  of  her  labours,  and  the  result  of 
her  labours,  with  satisfaction  and  pride.  Her  la- 
bours were  labours  of  love. 


288  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

She  heard  the  dog-cart  come  round  from  the  stable 
to  barkings  and  bayings  and  to  one  sustained  whin- 
ing, and  presently  drive  away.  Mr.  Bulkley  had  gone 
to  meet  Mr.  Coram.  The  one  whine  died  down  to 
silence. 

Coram,  stepping  out  of  the  train  to  Bulkley's 
hearty  greeting,  must  have  felt  as  if  he  were  coming 
home  indeed.  Bulkley's  announcement  to  the  sta- 
tion-master had  collected  a  little  eager  crowd  of 
persons  upon  the  platform:  a  farmer  or  two;  Mr. 
Trinden  the  Vet.  come  to  fetch  a  dog  which  had 
arrived  by  an  earlier  train;  this  one  and  that;  at  the 
outskirts,  loiterers,  hovering  porters. 

Welcome  was  written  on  every  face. 

"Jove!"  Coram  said,  shaking  Bulkley's  hand, 
"it's  good  to  be  back." 

"It's  good  to  see  you  back,"  said  Bulkley. 

"Aye,  it  is  that,  sir,"  said  the  station-master. 

Hands  all  round,  smilings,  greetings.  Coram,  as 
they  drove  through  the  familiar  streets,  stopping 
every  few  yards  as  he  was  recognized  and  hailed, 
may  have  asked  himself  why  he  had  ever  gone  away! 

There  was  Miss  Blondin! 

"If  it  is  n't  Mr.  Coram!" 

Miss  Blondin,  of  the  Berlin  Wool  Shop,  unchanged 
and  unchanging,  was  bobbing  and  bridling,  her  long 
black  earrings  a-swing.  She  looked  from  Coram  to 
Bulkley,  from  Bulkley  to  Coram. 

"Well,  this  is  a  delightful  surprise!    Mr.  Coram! 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  289 

Well !  Back  from  his  travels.  Back  from  the  Grand 
Tour.  Looking  so  well,  too,  —  though  a  thought 
thinner.  But  for  a  long  stay,  I  hope,  Mr.  Coram." 

"  For  as  long  as  we  can  holdhim,"  Bulkley  laughed. 

"Ah,  there'll  be  willing  hands  to  help  you  to  do 
that,  Mr.  Bulkley.  Soft  hands,  too.  White  hands. 
Glad  hearts  in  the  county  this  day,  Mr.  Coram! 
Well,  well,  well,  this  is  a  delightful  surprise." 

Then  it  was  the  town  clerk  and  then  Dr.  Har- 
borough.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  before  they  were  out 
of  the  town. 

He  looked  about  him.  Wombwell's  Menagerie,  by 
the  hoardings,  had  visited  the  neighbourhood  again 
lately,  and  Ginnett's  Circus.  He  felt  probably  as  if 
he  had  n't  been  away  at  all,  and  as  if  he  had  been 
away  for  centuries.  Inwardly,  maybe,  he  was  nerv- 
ous. He  had  been  away  for  centuries  and  his  heart, 
if  we  are  to  believe  Claudia,  had  not  stirred  from 
Redmayne.  Just  as  Claudia  had  said  "England!" 
on  a  like  occasion,  so,  as  he  was  driven  by  Bulkley 
along  the  greening  roads,  he  said,  "England!" 

There  was  nothing  to  touch  it,  he  meant. 

"Not  a  bad  little  island,"  said  Bulkley. 

"The  country  to  live  in,"  said  Coram. 

Claudia  would  have  noticed  that  he  had  not  yet 
spoken  Ann's  name.  But  she  would  have  seen  that 
he  hovered  round  it,  as  the  porters  had  hovered 
about  the  little  knot  of  persons  on  the  platform  at 
the  station.  He  seemed  likely  to  get  no  nearer  to  it 


290  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

than  Redmayne  in  the  eager  questions  he  began  to 
ask  now.  He  wanted  to  know  everything  about  Red- 
mayne —  the  same  Everything  upon  which,  in  his 
talk  with  Claudia  at  Brighton,  Claudia  had  closed. 

Bulkley  spoke  it. 

"I  saw  Mrs.  Forrester  yesterday.  She  knows  you 
're  arriving  this  morning." 

"I  think  I'll  call  on  her  this  afternoon,"  Coram 
was  able  to  say  then. 

"How  is  she?"  he  asked  the  next  moment. 

His  question  appeared  to  fix  Bulkley's  attention 
upon  something  which  he  had  seen  without,  as  it 
were,  observing.  She  looked  splendid,  he  said,  splen- 
did. There  was  a  'Now  I  come  to  think  of  it'  in  the 
manner  in  which  he  added,  "I've  never  seen  her 
look  better." 

It  was  because  she  had  been  so  anxious  about 
Johnny,  Bulkley  was  thinking,  and  now  Johnny  was 
well.  She  had  looked  splendid,  radiant. 

But  Coram,  catching,  perhaps,  at  straws,  would 
interpret  in  his  own  way.  She  could  not  be  hostile 
and  look  radiant.  Some  such  interpretation,  no 
doubt. 

"She  is  the  kindest  person,"  Bulkley  said.  He  was 
thinking  now  of  their  talk,  and  of  the  interest  which 
she  had  shown  in  his  affairs.  He,  like  Coram,  had 
his  thoughts.  She  had  shown  interest!  She  wanted 
genuinely  to  see  him  able  to  marry  his  Stella.  He  had 
not  yet  received  Mr.  Pargiter's  letter  which  was  to 
tell  him  of  the  practical  form  her  interest  had  taken, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  291 

and  had  taken  at  once.  But  her  sincerity  needed 
no  such  proofs.  He  thought  again  of  her  face  as  he 
had  seen  it  the  morning  before,  and  of  its  notable 
radiance. 

"  It  was  a  lucky  day  for  me  when  I  came  to  Red- 
mayne  as  your  pupil,"  he  said. 

"Mrs.  Forrester  probably  thinks  it  was  a  lucky 
day  for  her,"  Coram  said  very  heartily. 

Fora  few  moments,  each  thinking  his  own  thoughts, 
the  two  fell  into  silence.  The  faint  mist  of  green  was 
plainly  visible  over  the  trees  and  hedges  now.  In 
a  week  or  two,  if  there  were  no  set-back,  the  buds 
would  open  almost  as  you  watched.  Claudia  would 
have  seen  that  Coram  devoured  the  country  with 
his  eyes.  Every  landmark,  every  yard  of  the  road, 
almost,  must  have  had  its  memories  for  him. 

"By  Jove,  Juniper!"  he  said  suddenly. 

It  was  his  old  mare. 

"And  Juno's  in  the  stable." 

They  talked  horses  for  the  next  quarter  of  a 
mile,  and  then  dogs.  It  was  no  slight  to  the  faith- 
ful Somers  that  by  the  way  of  the  names  of  these 
faithful  friends  they  reached  hers. 

"She's  with  you  still?" 

"She  rules  me." 

"  Dear  old  thing!  She  used  to  rule  me." 

He  laughed,  but  Claudia  would  have  known  now 
that  he  was  nervous.  Easy  enough  to  understand 
that.  There  was  always  what  had  happened,  and  al- 
ways the  one  letter  which  he  had  received  from  Ann 


292  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

—  the  letter  which  had  closed  a  chapter,  as  it  must 
have  seemed,  finally.  Ann  had  told  him  not  to 
write  again.  It  had  been  then,  perhaps,  that,  having 
lost  her,  he  had  begun  to  love  her? 

Or  had  he,  indeed,  loved  her  always?  There  had 
never  been  a  time,  perhaps,  when  he  had  not  loved 
her. 

They  turned,  presently,  into  the  lane.  As  they 
drew  near  the  end  of  their  drive,  his  nervousness, 
though  he  was  still  able  to  conceal  it  from  Bulkley, 
would  have  been  increasingly  patent  to  Claudia.  He 
was  in  Redmayne  and  he  was  going  to  see  Ann  in  a 
few  short  hours.  The  day  had  come  to  which  he  had 
looked  from  what  Claudia  always  thought  of  as  the 
other  side  of  the  world.  He  had  wondered  whether 
this  day  would  ever  come.  Time,  with  Ann's  one 
letter,  must  have  shown  him  his  offence,  and  the 
enormity  of  his  offence,  since  it  was  an  offence.  He 
thought  himself  dismissed,  and  Ann  had  allowed 
him  to  come  back.  Perhaps  he  did  not  think  of  what 
he  should  say  to  her.  That,  like  Claudia's  attitude 
at  Brighton,  could  be  decided  by  perceptions,  in- 
tuitions even,  when  the  moment  came.  If  he  did 
not  understand,  —  and  we,  with  Claudia,  may  sup- 
pose that  he  did  not,  —  he  would  trust  to  understand 
when  he  should  see  Ann  face  to  face.  But  he  was 
nervous.  Yes,  he  was  horribly  nervous. 

At  the  bend  in  the  lane  a  distant  glimpse  of  the 
house  was  to  be  caught.  Claudia  would  have  seen 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  293 

that  he  bent  forward  as  they  approached  the  spot, 
and  then,  when  they  had  passed  it,  that  he  leant 
back,  his  muscles  relaxing. 

A  few  minutes  later  they  were  at  Lower  Red- 
mayne,  and,  to  the  tune  of  a  wild  barking  of  im- 
prisoned dogs,  he  was  shaking  the  hand  of  Mrs. 
Somers  —  and  being  told  that  he  did  not  look  as 
well  as  when  he  went  away ! 

"Thinner,  sir,  that's  what  you  are,  though  sun- 
burnt, I  grant  you.  Living  on  curries,  I  suppose,  and 
a  stranger  to  good  English  beef.  We'll  soon  fatten 
you  up  again.  Won't  we,  Mr.  Bulkley,  sir?  I  never 
did  hold  with  foreign  foods.  Tinned,  too,  I  dare  say. 
I  know  their  heathenish  messes.  Don't  tell  me!" 

"There  is  n't  much  I  could  tell  you  about  cookery, 
is  there,  Mrs.  Somers?" 

"Ah,  well,  plain  and  'olesome,  that's  my  motto. 
But,  then,  I'm  old-fashioned." 

The  dogs  barked  and  whined  —  one  more  than 
the  rest. 

"That's  Fanny,  sir,  yowlhiY'  Tom  spoke,  the 
smiling  stable  man,  who  had  smiled  and  smiled 
since  his  old  master  had  wrung  his  hand.  " I've  had 
fine  work  with  her  this  mornin'.  She  wanted  to  go 
with  the  dog-cart.  I  believe  she  knew  you  was  ex- 
pected, sir.  She 's  waitin'  for  you,  any'ow.  More  like 
a  yuman  bein',  that  dog,  than  a  yanimal." 

Coram  strode  to  the  stable  to  greet  his  old  spaniel, 
alone. 


294  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Eight  hours  later  he  was  again  in  a  train.  A  tele- 
gram —  the  semblance  of  a  telegram  —  had  called 
him  back  to  Brighton.  Brighton  or  London  or 
Jericho  .  .  .  Heaven  knew  where  he  was  going,  but 
with  a  yellow  envelope  in  his  hand  he  had  said 
Brighton.  Mrs.  Somers,  her  labours  of  love,  love's 
labour  lost,  had  swept  and  garnished  for  nothing; 
turned  out,  emptied,  moved.  The  sweet-smelling 
sheets  had  not  been  rumpled,  the  very  fire  (the  pro- 
voking day  too  warm  even  towards  nightfall  for 
fires  in  bedrooms)  had  not  been  lighted.  Love's 
labour  wasted  truly!  Mrs.  Somers,  like  Fanny  the 
spaniel,  lifted  up  her  voice  in  lamentation.  The  bit- 
terness of  her  lamentations  she  turned  first  against 
telegrams  (Telegrams!  She  had  always  hated  them. 
It  was  a  telegram  in  the  first  instance  which  had 
called  the  Master  away  at  all  —  struck  the  hour  of 
his  departure  anyhow !)  —  and  then  against  an  in- 
nocent old  lady  at  Brighton.  Inconsiderateness  was 
what  Mrs.  Somers  never  could  stand.  Mr.  Coram's 
aunt — if  she  was  ill — should  have  put  off  her  illness. 

"I  shan't  move  a  thing,"  she  said,  "till  we  see  if 
she  does  or  she  does  n't  get  better.  If  she  does  I  sup- 
pose she'll  have  the  grace,  maybe,  to  let  him  come 
back." 

Bulkley,  puzzled  himself,  forced  to  smile  in  spite 
of  his  own  disappointment,  could  not  say  whether 
Mr.  Coram's  return  was  to  be  looked  for;  he  added 
quietly  (smiling  inwardly  this  time),  "You'll  do, 
of  course,  as  I  tell  you,  Mrs.  Somers." 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  295 

"Of  course,  sir!  You'll  know  that  I  meant  no  dis- 
respect. Your  pardon,  I  'm  sure,  sir,  —  and  the  old 
lady's  at  Brighton,  —  for  I  suppose  I  forgot  myself. 
But,  please,  please,  just  for  a  day  or  two,  you  won't 
tell  me." 

They  left  it  at  that. 

And  what  had  happened?  Claudia  would  have 
known  what  had  happened;  if  Bulkley,  his  puzzled 
host,  was  as  much  in  the  dark  as  the  lamenting 
Somers. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  interview  between  Coram  and  Ann  took  place 
in  the  library.  Ann  had  given  directions  to  Whipple 
that,  as  of  old,  Mr.  Coram  when  he  called  should 
be  shown  in  there.  She  felt  that  failing  the  one  place 
of  all  where  —  if  there  be  such  a  thing  as  the  psy- 
chological spot  in  the  sense  in  which,  in  the  jargon 
of  these  days,  we  speak  of  the  psychological  moment 
—  the  meeting  should  have  taken  place,  the  library 
would  afford  her,  and  perhaps  him  also,  the  most 
support  in  circumstances  in  which  they  might  both 
be  expected  to  need  all  the  support  which  the  influ- 
ences of  familiar  and  friendly  things  had  the  power 
to  give.  She  wanted,  moreover,  to  see  him  in  the 
old  surroundings.  He  was  associated  in  her  mind 
with  the  library  more  intimately  than  with  any 
other  room  in  the  house.  But  it  was  not  that  only 
which  guided  her.  It  was  also  that  it  was  here  that 
they  had  been  wont  to  meet  in  the  unmenaced 
comradeship  of  those  weekly  half-hours  of  shared 
labours,  before  the  knowledge  that  she  loved  him 
changed  everything  for  her,  and  charged  their  meet- 
ings with  the  desperate  pleasure  that  is  nearly  all 
pain. 

Whipple,  with  the  afterglow  of  greetings  and  wel- 
comings  in  his  face,  came  to  tell  her  that  Mr.  Corara 
was  there.  Ann  wondered  how  many  times  to  the 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  297 

same  announcement  she  had  replied  that  she  would 
be  with  Mr.  Coram  in  a  minute. 

She  experienced  now,  waiting  as  she  was,  —  a 
woman  for  her  lover,  —  ready  as  she  was,  prepared, 
eager,  a  very  panic  of  fear  and  reluctance.  If  she 
could  have  put  her  thoughts  into  words,  they  must 
have  expressed  themselves  in  some  such  cry  as  the 
supreme  cry  of  all  the  anguished  cries:  Let  this 
pass  from  me!  Her  head  swam.  Drops  came  out 
upon  her  forehead.  Claudia!  Claudia!  But  Claudia 
was  not  there.  Claudia  had  gone  out  with  the  de- 
liberate intention  of  not  being  there.  She  felt  alone, 
deserted.  She  had  never  known  such  a  moment  of 
loneliness  and  isolation.  She  sank  to  her  knees  and 
she  prayed. 

Then,  as  the  terror  had  come  to  her,  so  did  the 
terror  pass.  It  was  her  lover  who  was  waiting  for 
her.  A  lover  who  had  come  across  the  world  to  tell 
her  that  he  loved  her.  And  her  lover  was  her 
heart's  desire  and  she  loved  him.  What  was  there  to 
fear?  Did  she  fear  of  very  happiness?  She  had  said, 
"To-morrow!  To-morrow!"  And  to-morrow  was 
to-day.  Her  face  had  been  set  towards  an  hour,  as 
the  face  of  the  sunflower  towards  the  sun,  and  that 
hour  was  here. 

For  a  moment,  as  she  entered  the  library,  she 
thought  it  was  empty.  But  Coram,  whom  she  had 
looked  to  see  in  his  old  seat  by  the  writing-table,  or 
standing,  as  he  so  often  used  to  stand,  under  the 


298  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Romney,  and,  whether  there  was  a  fire  or  not,  with 
his  back  to  the  hearth,  had  walked  (in  what  was 
probably  restlessness  under  stress  upon  his  part 
also  of  feeling)  to  the  farthest  of  the  three  windows. 
From  out  of  the  embrasure  he  came  forward  to  meet 
her. 

They  shook  hands. 

They  stood  for  a  moment  or  two  facing  each  other 
without  speaking.  Ann's  calmness,  when  she  had 
real  need  of  it,  never  failed  her,  but  after  the  violence 
of  her  recent  emotion  she  found  herself  surprised 
at  the  calmness  from  out  of  the  shelter  of  which  she 
was  able  to  observe  that  he  was  not  calm.  The  hand 
which  had  taken  her  own  steady  hand  was  trembling. 
At  that,  though  she  did  not  tremble  outwardly,  she 
trembled  inwardly  with  gladness.  Presently  she 
would  be  telling  him,  and  she  could  hardly  face  the 
gladness  that  would  be  hers  when  she  should  have 
told  him. 

They  were  still  standing.  She  remembered  a  con- 
versation which  had  taken  place  in  this  room, 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  which  they  had  re- 
mained standing. 

"Oh,  let  us  sit  down,"  she  said.  It  was  the  first 
sign  that  she  gave  him  that  she,  perhaps,  was  not 
calmer  than  he.  She  knew  suddenly  that  if  she  was 
to  remain  calm  she  must  sit  down.  She  could  trust 
her  face,  but  not  her  knees.  The  chair  in  which  she 
used  always  to  sit  for  the  weekly  half -hours  was  in 
its  old  place  beside  the  writing-table.  She  sat  down 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  299 

on  it,  hoping  that  she  did  not  appear  to  him  to  sink 
into  it.  It  gave  her  strength.  It  was  solid  as  a 
rock.  It  was  one  of  the  many  valuable  things  in 
the  beautiful  room;  made  in  days  when  furniture 
was  made  for  lasting.  It  gave  her  of  its  own 
strength. 

"It's  so  wonderful  to  be  back,"  he  was  saying, 
speaking  thickly  and  with  difficulty,  "and  to  be 
here." 

He  did  not  at  once  sit  down  himself,  though  his 
old  chair  was  there,  too,  at  the  writing-table.  That 
had  always  been  her  arrangement :  that  he  who  had 
most  of  the  writing  to  do  should  sit  at  the  table,  she 
beside  it. 

He  looked  round  the  room,  finding  nothing  changed, 
paced  a  few  yards  of  the  floor,  looked  at  her  again,  and 
again  looked  round  the  room.  He  might  never  have 
been  away  at  all.  He  came  to  a  standstill  beside  his 
chair  —  the  chair  that  she  thought  of  as  his.  Not 
two  years  yet  —  but  a  lifetime ! 

"I  haven't  dared  to  let  myself  think  that  you 
would  see  me." 

Ann  pondered  that.  Still,  he  had  not  sat  down. 
She  wished  that  he  would  sit  down.  And  yet,  deeper 
in  her  heart,  she  did  not  see  how  things  that  he 
must  say,  or  must  have  to  say,  could  be  said  or  be 
taken  — or  be  taken!  —  sitting. 

"Time  makes  things  possible,"  Ann  said.  "Till 
lately  —  it's  better  that  I  should  say  it —  I  don't 
think  I  could  have  seen  you.  That  does  n't  mean  that 


300  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

I  might  not  have  wished  to  see  you.  It  means  just 
what  it  says.  I  might  have  been  wishing  to  see  you, 
but  I  should  n't  have  seen  you." 

She  spoke  very  gently  if  she  spoke  very  carefully, 
weighing  her  words.  She  had,  at  least,  broken  the 
ice  for  him. 

"I  couldn't  have  looked  for  anything  else,"  he 
said,  "if  you  hadn't." 

That  finished  that.  It  was  for  him  to  plunge  now 
and  he  did  not  plunge.  What  he  did  was  to  draw 
the  chair  round  —  it  swung  on  a  pivot  —  and  at 
last  to  sit  down. 

He  was  not  quite  facing  her  and  she  was  able  to 
look  at  him.  She  saw  the  fine  network  of  lines  that 
Claudia  had  seen  about  his  eyes,  and  she  saw,  like 
Claudia,  that  these  lines  yet,  somehow,  did  not  age 
him.  He  had  still  his  air  of  being  a  boy  —  a  very 
big  boy.  If  her  heart  had  been  hard,  which  it  was  not, 
that  must  have  softened  it.  Her  heart  seemed  to  swell 
within  her  as  she  looked  at  him.  An  extraordinary 
tenderness  rose  in  her  like  the  gushing  waters  of  a 
fountain.  She  wanted  at  that  moment  to  possess 
him  rather  than  to  be  possessed  by  him.  If  he  had 
looked  at  her  in  that  moment,  they  must  have  rushed 
to  an  understanding  of  each  other.  But  he  did  not 
look  at  her  in  that  moment,  and  afterwards  of  her 
pride  Ann  could  tell  herself  that  she  was  glad.  Even 
as  the  moment  passed  she  knew  that  there  must 
be  no  jumping  to  issues.  Everything  depended,  ana* 
must  depend,  upon  what  he  had  to  say. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  301 

He  began  to  speak.  He  spoke  of  Claudia  and  of 
their  meeting  at  Brighton. 

"Yes,"  Ann  said,  "Claudia  told  me.  It  was 
strange  that  we  should  have  been  there." 

"  If  it  had  been  you  I  met  instead  of  Mrs.  Nanson, 
would  you  have  spoken  to  me?" 

He  turned  to  face  her  now,  the  chair  moving  round 
a  little  on  its  pivot. 

"Yes,"  Ann  said,  "I  think  I  should  have  spoken 
to  you  then.  That's  not  very  long  ago,  and  time, 
as  I  said  just  now,  makes  things  possible  that 
would  n't  always  have  been  possible.  I  should  have 
spoken  to  you  —  listened  to  you,  anyway." 

It  was  as  if  he  said,  'That's  something.' 

She  saw  a  movement  that  wrung  her  heart  —  a 
movement  which  passed  all  over  him,  his  face,  his 
body.  He  was  pressing  his  hands  one  against  the 
other,  with  a  force  that  was  convulsive  and  prob- 
ably quite  unconscious. 

"I  don't  know  how  to  speak,"  he  said.  "I  don't 
know  how  to  begin.  It  is  n't  that  I  don't  know  what 
I  want  to  say.  I've  had  what  I  want  to  say  in 
my  mind  for  so  long  that  if  I  didn't  speak"  —  he 
looked  round  —  "I  feel  as  if  the  very  stones  would 
cry  out.  Oh,  it  is  n't  quite  that  either.  I  want  — 
I  want—" 

He  could  not  go  on. 

"Tell  me,"  Ann  said. 

He  put  the  hands  that  he  had  been  pressing  to- 
gether over  his  eyes. 


302  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

That  also  gave  Ann  that  tender,  unnerving  pain 
which  the  tremor  she  had  seen  pass  over  him,  and 
through  him,  from  his  head  to  his  feet,  had  occa- 
sioned her. 

"Tell  me,"  she  said  again,  almost  inaudibly. 

She  could  still  trust  herself,  but  she  would  not  be 
able  to  trust  herself  for  long  if  his  involuntary  ac- 
tions continued  to  play  upon  the  chords  of  her  very 
being.  At  all  costs  she  must  not  let  herself  go  till 
she  had  heard  what  he  had  to  say.  She  was  sure  — 
was  n't  she,  oh,  was  n't  she?  —  that  the  moment 
was  coming  when  she  might  cast  all  to  the  winds  and 
let  herself  go  where  she  would  be  carried.  But  first 
she  must  hear  what  he  had  to  say,  and  what  he  had 
to  say  must,  yes,  must,  tell  her  what,  and  what  only, 
she  could  consent  to  hear. 

"Don't  worry  yourself,"  she  said  now,  still  in  a 
low  voice,  "about  how  you  say  it.  Say  what  you 
want  to  say  in  the  first  words  that  come  to  you." 

So  much  encouragement,  at  least,  she  might  give 
him.  It  was  dreadful  to  her  that  in  some  sort  she 
should  seem  to  be  judging  him.  But  it  had  to  be  so. 
She  had,  as  it  were,  to  suffer  it  to  be  so  now. 

"Well,  I  don't  know  how  I'm  to  expect  you  to 
understand,"  he  said.  "I  don't,  myself,  in  a  way, 
though  I've  had  time  for  thinking.  I've  been 
alone  with  —  with  what  I  have  had  to  think  of  for 
nearly  two  years.  I  Ve  been  absolutely  alone  with 
it  since  I  got  your  letter.  Thinking,  thinking.  Ii 
won't  bear  thinking  of,  but  I  've  done  nothing  else. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  303 

Oh,"  he  said,  "if  I  could  tell  you  you  wouldn't 
know." 

She  could  not  help  him,  as  Claudia  had  once  helped 
him. 

"I  —  how  shall  I  put  this?  —  I  —  one  must  speak 
of  what  won't  bear  thinking  of.  If  I  could  have 
asked  you  to  forgive  me  for  that,  I  think  I  could 
have  borne  it,  but  you  told  me  not  to  write  again, 
and  I  did  n't.  I  could  n't  in  the  face  of  what  you 
said.  But  it  pretty  well  broke  me." 

It  'broke'  Ann  to  hear  that.  She  was  so  ready  to 
hear  anything  that  should  give  her  the  assurance  she 
wanted.  She  looked  again  at  him  as  again  he  put  his 
hands  over  his  eyes.  Goodness!  as  Claudia  would 
have  said,  was  n't  it  enough?  The  sight  of  this  man 
suffering  for  her,  the  knowledge  that  he  had  suf- 
fered for  her  in  all  the  time  that  she  had  been  suffer- 
ing for  him?  We  may  condone  Claudia's  less  exact- 
ing attitude,  surely.  We  know  that  Claudia,  looking 
at  him  with  Ann,  would  have  said  that  if  it  was  n't 
enough  it  ought  to  have  been.  It  would  have  been 
in  the  case  of  nine  women  out  of  ten.  But  Ann,  for 
her  misfortunes,  was  the  tenth  woman.  It  was  n't 
enough.  It  was  n't  enough  yet,  anyway.  It  was  n't 
enough,  that  is  to  say,  at  the  point  which  Ann  had 
then  reached.  Ann,  in  sympathy,  might  be  'broken,' 
but  something  which  was  still  rigid  had  to  be  broken 
in  Ann  before  it  could  be  enough. 

He  did  not  look  at  her  as  he  began  to  speak  again. 

"Afterwards,"  —  he  sank  his  voice  so  that  she  in 


304  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

turn  hardly  heard  him,  —  "when  I  knew  that  — 
that  I  loved  you,  and  what  —  what  that  meant  to 
me,  I  would  have  given  my  life  to  wipe  out  what 
I  had  done.  I  did  n't  know  till  then  what  the  're- 
pentance' that  the  Bible  is  full  of  means.  I  did  n't 
know  till  then  that  there  could  be  a  changing  of  one's 
whole  outlook.  'Conversion'  is  the  horrible  word 
for  the  sort  of  thing  that  I  mean.  There  are  these 
things.  They  are  not  only  a  state  of  religious  emo- 
tion which  one  associates  with  revivalist  meetings. 
They  are  real  changes  of  attitude.  From  such  mo- 
ments one  sees  everything  newly.  I  would  have  given 
my  life.  I  wanted  only  one  thing  in  the  world  from 
that  moment,  and  your  letter  told  me  that  the  one 
thing  that  I  wanted  I  had  put  it  out  of  my  power  ever 
to  get.  You  meant  what  you  said?  You  meant  then 
you  did  n't  want  to  hear  anything  I  could  say?  You 
meant  —  anything  more  to  do  with  me?" 

"Yes,  I  meant  that,"  Ann  said. 

As  he  spoke  her  heart  had  been  sinking.  Was  that 
what  he  had  to  tell  her?  If  that  was  what  he  had  to 
tell  her,  if  she  had  not  meant  then  what  she  had  writ- 
ten, she  would  have  had  to  mean  it,  and  she  would 
have  meant  it,  now.  She  heard  him  in  a  sort  of  un- 
easy, distressing  dream,  wishing  to  stop  him,  unable 
to  stop  him.  His  words  fell  upon  her  ears  as  if  from 
and  across  an  immeasurable  distance.  Had  she  known 
him  at  all  —  ever  known  him?  He  had  not  loved  her 
till  afterwards.  His  love  had  not  awakened  his  paS- 
sion.  His  passion  had  awakened  his  love.  What 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  305 

was  he  telling  her,  if  not  this?  Oh,  other  things  he 
was  telling  her.  That  he  had  been  faithful  to  her 
since?  His  faithfulness  to  her  since  did  not  seem  to 
her  to  matter  very  greatly  if  he  had  not  been  faith- 
ful to  her  before  —  if  there  had  been  nothing  to 
be  faithful  to.  The  world  was  toppling  about  her, 
shaken,  it  seemed,  to  its  very  foundations. 

She  had  a  sensation  of  physical  cold  as  if  the  tem- 
perature of  the  room  had  fallen.  The  fire  which,  in 
the  ordinary  course,  had  been  lighted  that  morning, 
before  the  unexpected  warmth  of  the  day  had  de- 
clared itself,  had  been  allowed  to  go  out.  Ann,  look- 
ing past  Coram  at  the  ashes  in  the  grate,  thought, 
behind  the  tumult  of  her  thoughts,  that  nothing 
looked  more  desolate  than  a  dead  fire.  It  was  colder 
than  a  fire  which  has  never  been  lighted.  It  was 
also  like  something  which  has  given  up  its  soul.  She 
shivered  in  the  warm  room. 

And  then  from  the  hall,  down  the  length  of  the 
passage  and  through  the  closely  fitting  door,  she 
heard  the  faint  echoes  of  a  familiar  sound:  Johnny 
and  his  nurses  starting  for  their  walk.  Her  hands 
lying  along  the  arms  of  her  chair  gripped  the  polished 
grooved  wood.  She  knew  in  that  moment  that  she 
would  not,  as  she  had  so  fondly  supposed,  presently 
be  telling  him.  She  was  not  going  to  tell  him.  He 
had  made  it  impossible  that  he  could  be  told. 

His  next  words  set  the  seal,  if  any  had  been 
needed,  upon  the  impossibility. 

"  I  had  done  for  myself,  too,  by  a  horrible  mistake." 


306  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

She  may  have  winced  then.  Did  he  see?  Did  he 
know  that  he  was  done  for?  He  hurried  on:  "Call  it 
madness.  It 's  out  of  the  question  that  I  can  explain. 
It  was  madness.  I  must  have  gone  clean  out  of  my 
senses.  I  ask  you  to  believe  that." 

Ann  heard  him.  He  had  said  'mistake,'  and  asked 
her  to  believe  almost  the  one  thing  of  all  that  she  did 
not  wish  to  believe.  The  only  more  dismaying  ut- 
terance that  she  could  have  heard  from  his  lips 
would  have  been  that  he  had  behaved  like  a  cad. 
She  knew  in  her  heart  that  such  a  self-accusation 
would  not  have  presented  the  case.  She  knew  that 
it  would  have  misrepresented  it  to  grotesqueness. 
She  knew  that,  even  as  things  were,  he  was,  in  his 
unhappiness,  misinterpreting  it,  and  in  spite  of  him- 
self distorting  it;  but  she  could  not  balance  her  con- 
victions against  the  words  he  had  spoken.  If  he 
thought  he  had  behaved  badly  —  even  badly!  — 
he  had  behaved  badly;  and  that  was  the  end  of 
everything. 

He  did  not  say  what  she  dreaded.  She  was  spared 
that.  She  had  nodded  too  briefly,  perhaps,  to  his 
petition.  Her  acquiescence  —  if  it  was  acquiescence 
—  closed  what  he  may  have  thought  of  as  the  intol- 
erably painful  part  of  those  things  which  had  to  be 
spoken  between  them. 

Much  had  to  be  spoken  between  them,  but,  for 
one  of  them,  everything  had  been  spoken  when  the 
other  had  used  those  words  'mistake'  and  'madness'.' 
Nay,  before  he  had  used  them.  All  was  over  for  her 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  307 

when  he  had  used  the  word  'Afterwards.'  Ann  was 
relieved  that  no  sounds  came  through  the  windows 
from  the  garden.  Johnny  and  his  perambulator  and 
his  nurses  had  gone  another  way. 

Yet  she  heard  all  that  he  had  to  say.  Thus  she 
learnt  that  but  for  her  letter  he  had  meant  to  aban- 
don his  projected  travels  and  come  back  in  the  first 
available  boat.  This  gave  her  her  one  gleam  of  con- 
solation, for  it  seemed  to  antedate  the  'Afterwards* 
which  she  had  placed  at  the  exact  moment  of  the 
receipt  of  her  letter.  But  he  had  not  come  back,  and 
his  'Afterwards'  stuck,  as  it  were,  in  her  throat, 
choking  the  words  which  might  even  then  have 
brought  their  tried  souls  to  some  sort  of  a  mutual 
understanding.  If  he  had  not  loved  her  at  the  su- 
preme moment  of  her  life,  what  did  it  matter  when 
it  was,  precisely,  that  he  had  come  to  love  her?  She 
respected  his  obedience  to  her  wishes.  She  had  left 
him  no  loophole.  She  had  meant  her  letter  to  be 
the  final  word  from  which  there  can  be  no  appeal. 
She  remembered  only  too  well  the  desolation  of 
heart  and  soul  and  spirit  out  of  which  it  had  been 
written.  Her  pride  had  received  what  must  have 
been  its  death-wound  if  she  had  spared  herself  the 
knife.  Even  if  she  had  known  then  what  was  to 
happen  to  her,  it  is  doubtful  whether  she  would  have 
flinched.  She  could  be  glad  at  heart  that  when  she 
wrote  she  had  not  known. 

And  something  else  was  between  them.   She  saw 


3o8  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

that  he  supposed  his  difficulties  to  be  complicated 
by  their  relative  worldly  positions  and  even  posses- 
sions. Claudia  had  known  that  they  were  thus  com- 
plicated. As  if  these  mattered !  As  if ,  whatever  he 
could  be  accused  of,  he  could  be  so  much  as  sus- 
pected of  fortune-hunting!  He,  upon  his  part,  knew, 
of  course,  that  she  would  not  so  suspect  him,  but  the 
mere  fact  that  there  was  this  difference  did,  she  per- 
ceived, hamper  him.  Well,  was  it  not  the  supposed 
importance  of  this  difference  which  she  herself 
had  once  believed  to  be  hampering  him,  tying  his 
tongue,  driving  him,  in  fine,  from  Redmayne? 

Was  it  not  the  conviction  that  this,  in  very  truth, 
was  so  which  had  sent  her  trembling,  fainting,  to 
the  shadowed  garden? 

Difficulties  for  him;  difficulties  for  her;  difficulties 
everywhere.  Was  it  to  have  been  expected  that 
anything  would  go  smoothly? 

But  she  had  said,  "Tell  me,"  and  "Tell  me," 
while  as  yet  she  had  thought  that  what  he  had  to 
tell  her  was  what  she  hungered  to  hear.  She  had 
told  him  not  to  trouble  himself  about  the  manner  of 
his  telling,  but  to  speak  in  the  first  words  that  should 
come  to  him.  And  she  had  consented  to  see  him. 
And  he  was  there.  And  the  sum  of  these  things  — 
though  by  then  he,  too,  must  have  perceived  that 
all  was  going  hopelessly  awry  —  brought  him  to 
the  final  which  was  also  the  primal  object  of  his 
visit.  She  saw  the  effort  that  he  made  to  get  con- 
trol of  his  muscles  and  his  voice.  He  had  turned 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  309 

round  in  his  chair  and  was  facing  her.  It  was  her 
eyes  that  were  looking  down  now,  and  she  felt  the 
steadfast  gaze  of  his  through  her  eyelids. 

"You  meant  that,  then,"  he  was  saying;  "I 
could  n't  have  looked  for  anything  else.  I  don't  pre- 
tend that  I  deserved  anything  else.  But  now?  You 
said  time  made  things  possible.  If  it  means  any- 
thing to  you  to  know  it,  I  don't  think  there  has  been 
an  hour  of  all  the  time  I've  been  away  that  I 
have  n't  been  thinking  of  you.  I've  thought  of 
you  so  constantly  that  I  don't  know  what  I  have 
really  thought  and  what  I  have  only  desperately 
wanted  to  think.  I  know  that  I  Ve  sometimes  dared 
to  think  that  you  might  care.  I've  nothing  to  go 
upon  —  or  only  such  little  things  that  they  amount 
to  nothing.  Movings  of  straws  —  hardly  that.  But 
if  you  knew  how  I  wanted  to  think  that  they  had 
any  meaning,  you'd  understand  my  grasping  even 
at  straws." 

"One  moment,"  Ann  said:  "When  was  this?" 

"When?  All  the  time." 

"  I  see,"  Ann  said.   "  You  were  looking  back." 

"I  was  looking  back  for  anything  that  could  give 
me  a  glimmering  of  hope.  I  was  raking  the  days  and 
the  years  for  any  sort  of  confirmation.  Oh,  there 
was  little  enough.  I  don't  mean  your  goodness  to 
me.  There  were  thirteen  steady  years  of  that.  I 
mean  anything  that  might  seem  to  show  that  you 
could  care  for  me,  or  think  of  me  as  more  than 
a  friend.  Two  —  occasions,"  —  he  paused  for  the 


310  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

word,  —  "do  stand  out  from  the  rest:  the  day  we 
stood  by  the  statue  in  the  wood  is  one  of  them,  and 
that  last  evening  here  is  the  other.  Do  you  remember 
the  statue?  " 

Did  she  not?  Nothing  that  he  could  have  in- 
stanced could  have  come  so  near  to  disarming  her. 
Happen  what  might,  some  sort  of  solace  would  be 
left  to  her  out  of  the  bitterness  of  her  disillusion  and 
disappointment.  He  had  felt  the  spell.  They  had 
been  near  to  each  other  that  day.  Then,  at  least, 
they  had  been  near  to  each  other.  She  saw  him 
again  with  the  bird  in  his  arms.  She  felt  again  the 
unbearable  pain  of  that  moment.  She  saw  the 
bird  released,  wait,  and  then  fly.  She  saw  herself 
sitting  on  the  stone  seat,  and  Coram  on  the  ground 
at  her  feet.  She  heard  again  the  soft  whinnying  of 
his  horse.  She  saw  him  next  standing  beside  her 
in  the  middle  of  the  circle  before  the  figure  it  en- 
shrined. And  then  she  saw  something  else.  She 
saw  him,  just  before  they  turned  to  go,  pick  a  leaf 
and  lay  it  as  an  offering  at  the  feet  of  the  waiting 
boy. 

If  she  remembered! 

"Then,"  he  said,  "that  last  evening  —  not  —  not 
only  the  end  of  it ...  the  whole  of  it:  dinner  .  .  .  the 
three  of  us,  you  and  I  and  Mrs.  Nanson  .  .  .  some- 
thing over  us,  and  over  us  when  we  sat  in  the  garden, 
and  most  of  all  when  we  said  good-bye.  There 
seemed  to  be  something  that  was  n't  said  then,  and 
that  somehow  could  n't  be  said  ..." 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  311 

But  that  way  lay  also  the  madness  he  had  spoken 
of,  and  the  mistake !  Useless  anything  that  he  could 
say.  What  Ann  saw,  to  the  obscuring  of  everything 
else,  was  that  marriage,  or  even  the  thought  of  mar- 
riage, had  not  been  in  his  mind  at  the  time  of  a 
surrender  which  she,  God  help  her,  had  looked  upon 
as  her  share  in  a  sacrament.  The  chalice  a  stirrup 
cup  in  very  truth  —  nothing  more,  nothing  less. 
He,  in  other  words,  had  seen  Profane  Love  where 
she  had  seen  Sacred  Love.  That  sufficed  for  her. 
She  asked  no  questions.  She  refused  him,  aware 
to  misery  that  in  so  doing  she  dismissed  him. 

So,  for  the  second  time,  he  left  her. 


THE  FOURTH  BOOK 


BOOK  THE  FOURTH 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  time  had  come  for  Claudia  to  speak,  the  time 
for  plain  speaking. 

Let  be  so,  then:  Claudia  was  ready. 

They  were  in  the  boudoir.  Dinner  was  over.  They 
had  got  through  that  mercifully  without  disaster. 
Claudia  had  heard  bare  facts,  nothing  more;  for, 
coming  in  from  making  herself  scarce  for  the  after- 
noon, —  a  drive  to  call  upon  friends  of  her  own  on 
the  farther  side  of  the  county,  —  she  had  effected 
her  purpose  of  eff acement  so  thoroughly  that  she  had 
left  herself  time  for  no  more  than  a  few  minutes' 
talk  with  Ann  before  the  dressing-bell  sounded. 
But  she  had  heard  enough.  Her  mind  was  made 
up.  Ann  had  listened  to  him  and  had  refused  him. 
The  time  had  come. 

"You  did  n't  ask  him?"  Claudia  said. 
After  all  their  talk,  the  admissions  of  only  a  few 
days  ago,  the  wonderful  expectation  and  the  active 
upbuoying  happiness  of  yesterday  and  of  that  very 
morning,  Ann  had  not  asked  him. 
"There  was  nothing  to  ask." 
"How  do  you  mean  —  nothing  to  ask?" 
Ann  looked  at  her  patiently,  as  if  she  would  say, 


3i6  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"You  rather  force  me,  don't  you,  Claudia?"  but  she 
did  not,  yet,  at  any  rate,  look  at  her  as  if  she  chal- 
lenged her  right.  Claudia  would  be  patient,  too.  She 
intended  to  be  patient.  She  was  prepared  even  for 
the  need  of  patience.  She  was  prepared  also,  it  may 
be,  to  hear  her  right  challenged. 

"Oh,  well,  it  just  wasn't  marriage  to  him," 
Ann  said;  "the  thought  of  marriage  was  n't  in  his 
mind." 

"The  possibility,"  Claudia  murmured. 

Ann  accepted  that. 

"The  possibility,  if  you  like,"  she  said.  She  gave 
a  little  laugh.  "That  seems  to  have  come  with  his 
discovery  that  he  loved  me." 

"Oh,  he  does  love  you?"  Claudia  said. 

"  He  appears  to  have  found  out  that  he  does,"  Ann 
said. 

Good  Lord!  Claudia  thought  to  herself,  what 
more  did  the  woman  want!  Of  her  love  for  Ann, 
even  in  her  exasperation,  she  corrected  'woman,'  to 
'dear  woman,'  to  'dear,  good,  prejudiced,  blinded 
woman'  —  no,  'blind,' not  blinded,  and  unseeing 
rather  than  blind. 

"If  he  loves  you  ..."  she  said. 

"He  went,"  Ann  said.   "It's  unanswerable." 

"He  went,"  Claudia  said,  speaking  low  but  very 
distinctly,  "because  he  thought  he  was  meant  to  go 
—  because  he  did  n't  know,  anyway,  that  he  was  n't 
meant  to  go." 

"What  do  you  mean,  Claudia?" 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  317 

"Just  exactly  what  I  say,  Ann.  He  did  n't  know 
that  you  expected  him  not  to  go." 

"Not  to  go!  That  I  expected  .  .  .  He  —  he  did 
n't  know!" 

Claudia  nodded.  All  the  colour  ebbed  from  Ann's 
face.  Claudia  looked  away.  She  could  not  bear  to 
see  that. 

"It  does  n't  mean  that  he  did  n't  care,"  she  said. 
"He  did  care.  I  believe  he  cared  dreadfully.  I  be- 
lieve he  has  always  cared.  But  something  was  hap- 
pening which  had  happened  before  —  the  sort  of 
thing  that  did  happen  to  him." 

Ann's  scared  eyes  were  on  Claudia's  face.  She 
did  not  even  yet  wholly  grasp  what  Claudia  meant. 

Claudia  saw  that  she  must  be  more  explicit. 

"  It 's  we  who  are  to  blame,"  she  said  —  "our  sex. 
You  know  what  he's  like,  even  to  look  at.  Is  it 
possible  you  don't  guess  —  that  you  don't  know  — 
what  life  must  have  shown  him?  Why,  one  has  only 
to  look  at  him.  I  don't  pretend  to  understand  these 
things.  They  are,  and  that's  all  about  it.  Do  you 
remember"  —  Claudia  smiled  in  all  her  seriousness 
—  "do  you  remember  what  I  said  the  first  time  I 
saw  him?  It  was  the  day  I  arrived.  He  passed  us  on 
horseback,  do  you  remember,  when  you  were  bring- 
ing me  from  the  station.  I  said  no  one  ought  to  be 
so  good-looking.  No  one  ought  to  be  allowed  to 
be." 

Ann,  in  spite  of  her  desperation,  —  or  because  of 
it,  —  snatched  at  a  side-issue. 


3i8  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"I  don't  think  him  so  very  good-looking.  There 
are  plenty  of  faults  in  his  face  — " 

"And  not  one  line  that  any  one  would  wish  dif- 
ferent —  any  woman,  at  all  events.  You  know  as 
well  as  I  do  that  it  is  n't  a  question  of  correctness. 
He's  good-looking  in  the  sense  that  I  mean.  There's 
something  —  a  quality  in  his  good  looks.  I  '11  grant 
you,  if  you  like,  that  good  looks  are  n't  necessary. 
The  quality  can  be  there  without  looks  at  all.  Good- 
ness! there  was  a  horrible  little  purser  on  board  the 
ship  I  went  out  in  —  spotty,  even !  —  but  he  had 
it,  whatever  it  is,  and  all  the  ladies' -maids  and  the 
stewardesses  were  in  love  with  him.  I  had  a  maid 
in  those  days  —  Boulter  —  and  the  trouble  I  had 
with  her!  Scenes,  tears,  whimsies;  she  was  positively 
ill.  No  harm  came  of  it,  but  that  was  n't  poor 
Boulter's  fault.  But  —  this  is  my  point  —  no  one 
could  have  blamed  the  dreadful  little  purser  if  harm 
had  come  of  it." 

Ann  sat  quite  still,  her  eyes  on  Claudia's  face. 
No  needlework  engaged  her  fingers  that  night,  or 
Claudia's  fingers  either;  the  occasion,  by  unspoken 
agreement,  too  grave  for  distractions.  There  were 
lines  on  Ann's  smooth  forehead.  She  heard  Claudia 
in  silence,  her  flickering  eyelids  trying  the  words  as 
they  fell. 

"You  asked  him  nothing,"  Claudia  said,  "and 
so  he  told  you  nothing.  He  might  not  have  been 
able  to  tell  you  if  you  had  asked  him.  But  he  might 
—  oh,  he  might.  How  is  it  that  I  see  and  that  you 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  319 

don't?    You  admit  that  you  care  for  him,  and  you 
don't  see!" 

"What  is  it  that  you  do  see,  Claudia?" 

"I'm  telling  you,  Ann."  She  caught  her  breath 
and  released  it  with  a  little  protesting  sound.  "You 
say  he  went.  Very  well,  he  did  go.  He  went  because 
he  did  n't  dream  that  you  would  marry  him." 

"But,"  Ann  said  in  protest,  in  very  stupefaction 
—  "but..." 

She  did  not  finish.  She  could  not. 

"Yes,  I  know,"  Claudia  said.  "That's  the  pity 
of  it  and  the  dreadfulness.  But  surely,  surely  some 
of  the  pity  may  be  extended  to  him  for  what  should 
have  made  such  a  thing  possible.  Where  our  sex  is 
concerned  he's  always  been  the  victim  of  his  own 
appeal.  He  has  n't  an  ounce  of  conceit  —  I  don't 
mean  that.  I  doubt  whether  he  even  realizes.  I 
don't  suppose  he  argues  about  it  or  thinks  about  it. 
It's  there.  We  know  it's  there.  Why,  if  I  know  it's 
there  when  I  Ve  only  seen  him  three  times  ...  if  I 
knew  it  was  there  the  first  time  I  did  see  him  .  .  .  ! 
Something  that  makes  one  want  to  give  —  the  de- 
cent ones  among  us,  that  is !  —  and  something  that 
makes  the  other  sort  want  to  get.  And  I'm  not 
altogether  blaming  the  other  sort  either.  I  don't 
know  that  I'm  blaming  any  one.  It's  tragic,  but, 
oh,  my  goodness!  oh,  my  goodness!  it's  comic, 
too!" 

She  came  to  a  stop  and  she  laughed ;  tears,  all  the 
same,  as  once  before,  very  near  the  shining  eyes. 


320  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Ann  shifted  her  position,  but  did  not  speak.  Claudia 
spoke  again. 

"And  more  than  half  of  his  appeal  is  innocent. 
He's  like  a  big  boy.  He  is  a  boy  whatever  his  age 
may  be.  Oh,  he's  old  enough  to  'know  better'  — 
no  one  need  tell  me  that!  But  he  is  a  boy.  He'll 
never  grow  up.  There  are  men  who  never  do  grow 
up.  They  grow  older  —  and  he's  grown  older  (and 
that's  you,  Ann!).  I  saw  that  at  Brighton;  a  line 
or  two  in  his  face;  a  look  in  his  eyes  —  but  they 
never  grow  up  and  women  want  to  mother  them. 
And  that's  an  excuse,  a  plea,  rather,  for  them  — 
even,  perhaps,  the  other  sort.  But  for  the  moment 
it 's  not  the  excuses  or  the  pleas  for  them  that  con- 
cern us.  It's  the  pleas  for  him.  And  it  is  n't  exactly 
pleas,  either,  that  I'm  putting  forward.  It's  an  ex- 
planation. All  his  life  a  demand  has  been  made  upon 
him.  Something  has  been  offered  him  —  put  in  his 
way.  Oh,  if  it's  got  to  be  stated  more  plainly, 
thrown  at  his  head." 

Ann  drew  back  with  a  little  cry.  She  was  white 
now  to  the  lips. 

Claudia  gasped. 

"No,  no,  no!"  Claudia  said  quickly,  leaning  for- 
ward as  Ann  drew  back.  "Don't,  for  Heaven's  sake, 
misunderstand  me."  She  caught  her  hands.  "  Don't 
you  see  what  I  mean  and  what  I  don't  mean?  Can't 
you  distinguish?  Don't  you  see  that  it  was  on  a 
background  of  that,  that  you,  altogether  different, 
came  to  him?  Altogether  different.  Ann,  you  shan't 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  321 

misunderstand  me!  He  knew  you  were  different. 
My  goodness!  of  course  he  knew!  He  thought  of 
you  as  miles  above  him.  He  had  n't  dared  —  no, 
that  is  n't  the  word.  He  had  n't  let  himself  hope, 
or  even  imagine,  that  you  would  think  of  him  as  a 
husband.  He  did  afterwards.  Oh,  he  did  afterwards 
when  he  thought  he  had  done  for  himself.  The  trag- 
edy for  you  and  for  him  —  and  for  me,  since  I  sent 
you  to  him  —  was  that  it  was  to  some  one  with  those 
experiences  behind  him  that  you  came  that  night 
in  the  garden.  And  you  were  defenceless.  You  were 
unprepared  ..." 

She  broke  off,  sobbing.  Ann  was  sobbing,  too.  But 
Ann  was  drawing  her  hands  from  her.  Claudia  tried 
to  retain  them,  but  Ann  said,  "Let  go!  Oh,  let  go!" 
and  she  released  them. 

There  were  a  few  moments  of  sheer  dismay  when, 
to  all  Claudia's  attempts  to  soothe  her,  Ann  with 
averted  face  would  only  answer,  "Let  me  alone! 
Oh,  let  me  alone!  Why  can't  you  let  me  alone!" 

"But  I've  hurt  you,"  Claudia  said. 

Ann  struggled  for  her  handkerchief. 

"Yes,  you  have,"  she  said.  "You  may  well  say 
that.  You've  .  .  .  shamed  me.  I  was  n't  too  proud 
of  myself  before  .  .  .  shamed  me  .  .  .  humbled  me 
to  the  dust  .  .  ." 

"You  know  I  did  n't  want  to  do  that,"  Claudia 
said.  "  I  was  trying  to  show  you  why  you  should  n't 
be  or  feel  hurt." 

"By  showing  me,  however  different  you  may  say 


322  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

that  I  am  from  the  others,  that  I  just  did  behave 
like  the  others." 

Claudia  was  silent  for  a  moment  or  two,  consider- 
ing, weighing  chances.  Then,  her  own  face  growing 
very  white,  she  said  steadily :  — 

"Perhaps  it's  necessary  that  you  should  see  what 
he  saw,  Ann." 

Her  fear  was  that  Ann  would  get  up  and  go  out 
of  the  room;  refuse  to  listen;  refuse,  it  might  be,  to 
have  anything  more  to  do  with  her.  In  a  throbbing 
lull  when  time,  measured  actually  by  a  few  seconds, 
seemed  as  in  the  breathless  space  between  a  flash 
and  an  explosion,  to  be  suspended  or  unbearably 
prolonged,  Claudia  envisaged  what  a  rupture  be- 
tween her  and  Ann  would  mean.  The  tension  was 
horrible.  If  Ann  moved  suddenly.  Or  if  she  did  not 
move  .  .  . 

Claudia  could  have  screamed. 

The  striking  of  the  clock  upon  the  mantelpiece 
broke  the  spell.  Simultaneously  she  and  Ann  re- 
membered that  at  any  moment  now  the  servants 
would  come  in  with  the  urn  and  the  tea-tray.  Claudia 
breathed  again,  and,  drying  her  own  eyes,  quickly 
but  without  hurry,  saw  Ann  dry  hers.  Little  beads 
stood  on  Claudia's  forehead,  but  she  took  up  a  book, 
and  Ann  went  over  to  the  writing-table,  which  had 
its  back  to  the  room.  A  lady  reads  and  a  lady  writes. 
It  was  into  an  atmosphere  of  unsuspicious  calm,* of 
normal,  unquestionable  domesticity,  that  five  min- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  323 

utes  later  the  servants  and  the  tea-tray  —  symbols 
of  an  unalterable  routine  —  made  their  quiet,  un- 
observant entrance. 

Ann,  over  her  shoulder,  said,  "Make  tea  for  me, 
Claudia." 

Claudia,  not  to  be  outdone,  said,  "In  half  a  min- 
ute, Ann ;  I  must  just  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  page." 

So  they  combined  to  sustain  the  appearances 
which  were  yet  quite  unmenaced. 

Had  the  necessities  of  the  moment  saved  them? 
Claudia,  trembling  now,  her  limbs  like  water  so  that 
her  hand  would  hardly  support  the  weight  of  her 
book,  did  not  know.  It  seemed  ages  before  she  heard 
a  sound  from  the  writing-table  behind  her.  Then 
she  heard  Ann  tearing  up  the  sheet  of  paper  on  which 
she  had  been  writing  or  pretending  to  write.  The 
pause  gave  her  time  to  recover  herself. 

Ann  came  over  and  began  mechanically  to  make 
the  tea  which  neither  of  them  wanted.  Claudia  saw 
her  face,  and  knew  what  the  effort  of  the  tranquil 
back  which  she  had  presented  to  the  room  must 
have  cost  her. 

"Are  you  very  angry  with  me?" 

"I  don't  know,  Claudia.  I  suppose  I've  no  right 
to  be  angry.  No,  I  Ve  certainly  no  right  to  be  angry 
with  you.  I've  put  myself  outside  the  right  to  be 
angry  at  all." 

"Well,  don't  be  angry  with  me,  Ann.  You've 
every  right  to  be,  but  don't,  or  we  come  to  a  dead- 


324  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

lock,  and  we  must  n't  —  we  must  n't.  This  has  got 
to  be  talked  out.  I'm  —  I 'm  —  come  here,  Ann !  — 
I'm  shaking  all  over.  You'll  think  I'm  pretending, 
for  I'm  quite  capable  of  shaking  on  purpose,  but 
I  'm  not.  I  'm  in  desperate  earnest." 

"Am  I  such  a  beast?"  Ann  said. 

Claudia  shook  her  head,  smiling  through  her 
tears. 

"It's  I  that  feel  a  beast  —  such  a  miserable  lit- 
tle beast!  Because  I  know  myself,  perhaps.  Oh, 
I  have  n't  any  illusions  about  myself.  I  do  use  all 
our  weapons  when  I  have  to.  I'd  use  cunning  and 
sophistry  and  anything  that  would  help  me.  I 
was  n't  born  a  woman  for  nothing.  I  'd  try  all  the 
expedients  —  the  tricks.  It's  only  you  who  are 
above  the  tricks  that  could  make  me  ashamed,  for 
in  my  heart  I  know  I'm  quite  shameless.  But  in 
this  I  'm  absolutely  sincere.  Will  you  listen  to  me?  " 

"You  are  trembling,  Claudia!" 

"I  've  taken  upon  myself.  I  feel  rather  like  Abra- 
ham pleading  for  the  Cities  of  the  Plain." 

"It  is  n't  as  bad  as  that!"  Ann  said. 

Was  it  tricks?  Was  it  Claudia's  abominable  clev- 
erness? 

Whatever  the  contributing  causes,  the  tension, 
temporarily,  at  least,  was  relaxed.  Claudia  could 
speak  again  and  Ann  could  listen. 

"What  I  want  to  know  is  how  you  know,"  Ann 
said.  "Did  he  tell  you  all  this?" 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  325 

"He  hardly  said  a  word." 

"Then  you're  only  guessing!" 

"But  guessing  right,"  Claudia  answered.  "I  be- 
lieve I  said  that  to  you  once  before.  I  know  things. 
I  do  guess  right.  It 's  the  quality  of  my  defects.  It 's 
my  feminineness.  It's  all  that  I've  just  been  ad- 
mitting to  you." 

The  flicker  of  humour  had  passed  from  Ann's  face. 

"Then  you  don't  even  know  about  the  others?" 

"Oh,  don't  I?"  Claudia  said. 

"About  what  you  called  the  other  sort?" 

"I  know  about  them  best  of  all.  Though  I  don't 
know  —  in  the  sense  that  I  have  n't  a  vestige  of  evi- 
dence to  produce  —  I  do  know.  I  'd  stake  my  life 
on  it." 

"But  how  do  you  know?" 

"I  just  do  know.  I  always  know.  There  are 
women  that  you  could  n't  talk  to  for  five  minutes 
without  knowing  —  well,  that!  Oh,  you  could  talk 
to  them  for  hours  and  not  know  —  forever,  perhaps. 
But  I  could  n't." 

She  paused,  sorely  tempted  to  use  names.  What 
was  Lady  Mallard  that  she  should  spare  her?  What 
was  that  good-natured,  likable  trollop,  Lady  Fother- 
ingham,  that  she  should  spare  her?  Sorely,  sorely 
tempted!  For  a  moment  she  felt  reckless.  But  she 
would  be  wholly  unjustified.  She  had  no  proofs. 
She  had  less  than  no  proofs.  She  was  guessing  wildly, 
if,  as  she  felt  in  her  very  bones,  she  was  guessing 
right.  Two  light  women.  Very  well,  that  might  be 


326  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

so,  but  on  what  grounds,  what  conceivable  grounds, 
did  she  couple  them,  light  as  they  might  be,  with 
him?  They  were  there.  He  was  there.  Flint,  steel, 
the  spark?  She  had  not  even  seen  the  spark.  No, 
out  of  the  question.  But  she  knew.  Oh,  she  knew. 

"And  if  it's  true,"  Ann  said  —  "if  you're  right 
in  what  you  think,  am  I  to  take  their  —  their 
leavings?" 

"He's  not  their  leavings,"  Claudia  said.  It  was 
almost  a  cry.  She  was  on  sure  ground  there.  "My 
goodness,  Ann!  he's  not  their  leavings." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"They're  his.  That 's  what  you  don't  see.  They 
are  his  leavings.  You  've  been  privileged  —  I  will 
use  the  word  —  to  make  them  his  leavings.  They 
were  his  leavings  from  the  moment  he  loved  you." 

It  was  Ann  who  gasped  now.  But,  in  spite  of  her, 
her  heart  leapt.  Her  eyes,  round,  still  with  the  ap- 
prehensive look,  and  with  the  traces  of  tears  under 
them,  searched  Claudia's  face.  Claudia's  eyes  met 
hers  unblinking. 

There  was  another  pause.  Now,  if  Claudia  had 
been  wise,  she  would  have  retired,  leaving  this  new 
thought  to  soak  in.  She  made  her  one  false  move. 

"You  can't  send  him  back  to  them,"  she  said; 
"you  can't.  It's  what  you  will  be  doing  if  you  send 
him  away.  Back  irretrievably  this  time.  And  after 
getting  him  away.  My  goodness,  Ann!  what  do  vou 
want?  Isn't  it  enough?"  She  was  carried  along 
blindly  by  an  indignation  which  she  should  have 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  327 

known  how  to  control.  She  said  it  "wouldn't  be 
fair."  She  said  it  would  be  "downright  wicked." 
She  lost  her  pretty  head,  in  short.  "Ann,  you  must 
bear  with  me.  What  happens  with  the  rest  of  his 
life  is  in  your  hands.  There's  a  straight  line  and 
there's  a  crooked  line,  and  if  he  takes  the  crooked 
line,  it's  you  who  will  be  responsible." 

Ann  clasped  her  hands.  She  unclasped  them.  She 
moved  a  cup;  pushed  it  away.  Claudia  had  gone 
too  far. 

"I  think  I  am  bearing  with  you,"  she  said  in  a 
strangled  voice.  "You  find  plenty  to  say  for  him. 
Oh,  I  dare  say  there  is  plenty.  What  of  me?  You 
forget  what  I  Ve  had  to  bear  all  along  —  what  I  Ve 
had  to  bear  from  him  and  for  him.  He  went  away 
.  .  .  left  me  ...  I  was  left  to  —  to  —  my  God, 
Claudia!  I'm  only  flesh  and  blood.  Can  anything 
more  be  required  or  even  asked  of  me?  I  Ve  borne 
his  child..  ." 

The  woman  truly  is  broken  on  the  wheel  and  the 
man  goes  free.  Claudia,  watching  Ann  helplessly 
(and  perceiving  only  too  well  the  mistake  which  she 
had  made),  experienced  a  sudden  revulsion  of  feeling 
and  knew  herself  at  the  mercy  once  more  of  those 
thoughts  which  had  possessed  her  at  Brighton,  when, 
for  a  few  ugly  moments,  she  had  hated  the  man  and 
all  men  for  his  sake.  She  set  her  teeth  and  watched, 
enduring  what  she  saw  with  every  nerve  exposed, 
jarred,  on  edge.  And  she  must  begin  her  labours 


328  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

afresh.  She  had  achieved  something  and  lost  it; 
built  and  knocked  down.  Well,  to  her  task  once 
more.  But  she  was  tempted  in  another  direction 
now. 


CHAPTER  II 

TEMPTED!  Her  nerves  ajar.  Tempted!  Two  birds 
with  one  stone! 

She  had  only  for  blessings  to  give  cursings;  for 
pleadings,  to  denounce.  Ann  would  turn  then  and 
defend  what  she  herself  had  denounced.  She  would 
defend  the  man  who  had  hurt  her,  as  a  mother  de- 
fends her  young. 

So  easy  a  way!  Infallible,  moreover.  The  thing 
was  established.  It  was  common  experience,  com- 
mon knowledge!  Interfere  between  the  wife  and 
the  husband  who  is  ill-treating  her,  and  the  wife 
will  turn  upon  you  and  fight  you,  —  fight  you  for 
the  husband's  right  to  beat  her,  —  and,  fighting  you, 
be  reconciled  to  him.  And  Ann  —  representing  the 
wife  —  was  in  love.  If  she  had  said  that  she  was 
not,  —  and  she  had  not  said  that,  —  Claudia  would 
still  have  known  that  she  was  in  love.  She  loved 
the  man  in  spite  of  the  suffering  he  had  caused  her. 
More,  she  loved  him  because  of  the  suffering  he 
had  caused  her.  Claudia  saw  all  the  weapons  ready 
to  her  hand  (which  was  her  tongue!)  if  she  would  but 
be  unscrupulous  enough  to  use  them.  And,  smart- 
ing as  she  was,  tingling,  itching,  she  longed  to  use 
them.  She  had  found,  as  Ann  had  told  her,  plenty 
to  say  for  him,  but  if  it  came  to  what  there  was 
that  could  be  said  on  the  other  side  .  .  what  was 


330  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

there  not  that  could  be  said  against  him?  The  lover 
who  rides  away  .  .  .  the  betrayer  .  .  .  There  were 
words  for  such  men  .  .  .  crudities,  coarsenesses  of 
the  Elizabethans  and  of  the  Restoration  —  oh,  she 
would  find  them!  It  would  not  be  words  that 
would  fail  her.  Nothing  would  fail  her.  And,  lash- 
ing him,  she  would  be  lashing  Ann,  and  Ann,  doubly 
lashed,  goaded,  stung,  would  rise  and  fight .  .  .  and 
the  end  —  the  defeat  of  Claudia  which  would  be 
Claudia's  victory  —  would  justify  the  means.  She 
could  see  Coram  recalled  .  .  . 

Sorely,  sorely  tempted,  Claudia!  She  opened  her 
mouth  to  speak  —  and  paused. 

Tricks,  tricks,  the  femininities!  And  she  had  told 
Ann  that,  though  she  was  capable  of  using  them, 
she  was  not  using  them.  And  the  whole  thing  would 
be  a  lie,  grossly  unfair  to  Coram,  who  trusted  her, 
whose  cause  lay  in  her  hands;  unfair  to  Ann  also. 
Not  thus  must  these  two  win  to  one  another.  Coram 
was  not  what  she  would  have  called  him.  He  was 
not  unworthy.  It  was  her  part  to  make  Ann  see  the 
good  which  she,  Claudia,  knew  to  be  in  him.  She 
turned  from  the  temptation,  relinquishing  it,  per- 
haps, rather  than  thrusting  it  behind  her,  but  re- 
jecting it  finally.  She  braced  herself  anew  and  let 
Ann  weep. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  urn  on  the  neglected  tea-table  was  still  hiss- 
ing and  rumbling.  The  sound  caught  her  ear  and 
presently  her  attention.  It  was  as  if  there  was  a 
deliberate  intention  on  the  part  of  the  urn  to  at- 
tract her  notice.  If  it  was  her  admiration  that  it 
wanted,  it  had  that  always.  Its  beautiful  lines  could 
not  but  please  the  eye,  its  proportions  with  their 
rhythm  and  balance,  its  shining  copper  surface,  the 
gracious  hanging  rings  which  were  its  handles,  the 
cunning  workmanship  of  the  little  ivory-mounted 
lever  tap  .  .  . 

Hissing  and  rumbling,  humming  like  a  hive  .  .  . 

"Did  I  not,"  said  the  urn,  —  "did  I  not,  by  my 
timely  appearing  on  the  agitated  scene,  save  one 
situation?  Might  I  not  be  trusted,  perhaps,  if  not 
to  save,  at  least  to  ease,  another?" 

Claudia  arose,  understanding  at  last.  Routine  to 
the  rescue,  commonplaces,  the  calming  influences  of 
the  normal,  the  ordinary.  Ann  had  begun  and  aban- 
doned. The  water  which  she  had  poured  into  the 
cups  to  warm  them  was  growing  cold.  Claudia 
emptied  and  warmed  afresh.  The  tea  was  made,  she 
found,  but  was  very  strong  from  its  long  standing. 
She  poured  some  of  it  away  and  filled  up  the  teapot 
once  more,  ready  now  to  hear,  and,  interpreting, 
to  read  approval  into  the  pleasant,  familiar  sound  of 


332  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

the  gurgling  fall  of  the  water.  Then,  as  in  the  night 
of  watching  in  the  nursery,  she  brought  a  cup  to 
Ann. 

Ann  refused  it. 

She  stood  beside  her  with  the  cup  in  her  hand. 
Her  hand  was  still  not  quite  steady.  Ann  took  the 
cup  from  her. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THEY  went  over  the  ground  again  inch  by  inch. 
When  Claudia  softened,  Ann  was  inclined  to  soften. 
When  Ann  softened,  Claudia  was  more  than  in- 
clined to  soften.  Sometimes  they  both  hardened 
simultaneously.  But  softening,  it  may  be  said,  an- 
swered ultimately  to  softening.  The  tensest  moments 
were  those  in  which  Ann  heard  for  the  first  time 
of  Claudia's  letter.  For  Claudia,  self-pledged 
to  straightforwardness,  made  her  confession.  Her 
confession  ("You'll  be  angrier  than  ever,  Ann.  I 
wrote  to  him")  constituted  the  one  bit  of  ground 
then-to-fore  untrodden.  Claudia  recognized  the 
dangerous  nature  of  that  piece  of  ground  as  she 
stepped  on  to  it,  but  —  did  she  not  feel  herself 
pledged?  —  it  had  to  be  trodden  —  goodness!  and 
re- trodden !  —  like  the  rest. 

They  came  to  this  new  ground  by  the  way  of  the 
old.  Ann,  melted  as  a  woman  by  the  tea,  or  by  the 
unsteadiness  of  Claudia's  hand,  or  perhaps  ashamed 
of  the  cry  which  she  had  allowed  to  escape  her,  — 
even  if,  indeed,  it  had  been  wrung  from  her,  —  had 
held  out  the  olive  branch  frankly. 

"  I  believe  it's  you  who  bear  with  me,  Claudia!" 

Claudia  laughed. 

"We'll  say,  if  you  like,  that  we  bear  with  each 
other." 


334  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

She  was  prepared  for  surprises,  but  hardly  for 
Ann's  next  words. 

"What  do  you  want  me  to  do?"  Ann  said. 

For  a  second  or  two  Claudia  almost  held  her 
breath.  But  she  was  not  deceived.  She  was  not  ab- 
solved from  her  confession.  The  end  was  not  yet. 

"To  bear  with  him,"  she  said. 

"How  can  I?  How  am  I  to?  Claudia,  how  am  I 
to?  I  ask  you!" 

"You  only  can,"  Claudia  said,  pursuing  her  pol- 
icy of  inch-by-inchness,  "if  you  can  manage  to  be- 
lieve in  him." 

"But"  — the  old,  old  ground!—  "I  did  believe 
in  him.  I  believed  in  him  absolutely.  Absolutely. 
That's  why  I  find  myself  where  I  am  to-day  — 
where  I  was  the  day  after  he  left  me.  Oh,  Claudia,  he 
left  me!  It  all  comes  back  to  that.  There's  no  get- 
ting away  from  it." 

"No,  there  is  n't,"  Claudia  said  quietly.  "  I  don't 
pretend  that  there  is.  But "  —  Patience !  How  many 
times  must  she  say  this? —  "he  did  n't  know.  That 's 
what  you  're  ignoring.  That 's  what  it  really  comes 
back  to." 

She  waited  a  moment,  and  then  said :  "  If  he  had 
known,  nothing  on  earth  would  have  taken  him  from 
you.  If  he'd  known  afterwards,  oceans  and  conti- 
nents would  n't  have  kept  him  from  you.  Why, 
they  have  n't  as  it  is.  If  only  he  had  known,  if  only 
news  could  have  reached  him!"  The  moment  had  > 
come.  "There's  something  I  'd  better  tell  you,  Ann, 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  335 

while  I'm  about  it  .  .  ."  She  hardly  hesitated.  There 
should  be  no  reservations  now.  "It  is  n't  my  fault 
that  news  did  n't  reach  him." 

Other  silences  had  been  awful  in  this  room.  Only 
one  other,  Claudia  thought,  had  been  quite  like  the 
pounding  silence  out  of  which  Ann  at  last  repeated 
her  words. 

"You  wrote  to  him!" 

"What  was  I  to  do?"  Claudia  said.  "It  was  in 
those  dreadful  days  when  —  when  we  knew  —  and 
when  we  did  n't  know  where  to  go.  You  had  told 
him  not  to  write.  Something  had  to  be  done.  I 
thought  so  then,  anyway,  for  even  I  did  n't  know 
the  strength  that  was  in  you.  Actually  nothing 
was  done,  for  my  letter  never  reached  him.  You 
managed  without  him." 

She  looked  at  Ann  now.  The  red  wave  which  had 
flooded  Ann's  face  again  was  again  receding.  It 
would  leave  her  whiter  than  before. 

"Ann,  do  say  something.  No,  of  course,  I  did  n't 
ask  him,  if  you  want  to  know  that.  I  would  n't  have 
asked  him  in  any  case,  but  there  was  no  need.  I  had 
only  to  see  him  to  know  that  my  letter  had  n't 
reached  him.  I  don't  know  what  became  of  it.  There 
was  nothing  in  it  that  could  have  enlightened  any 
one  else,  so  it  does  n't  matter  what  did  become  of  it. 
I  said  there  were  reasons  why  he  would  wish  to  come 
home  —  no,  I  said  might  wish.  I  told  him  no  one 
knew  I  was  writing.  Give  me  credit  for  some  dis- 
cretion, Ann." 


336  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Why  did  n't  you  tell  me?"  Ann  said. 

"What  would  have  been  the  use  of  that?  Would 
you  have  let  me  write?  Of  course,  you  would  n't." 

Do  what  she  would,  Claudia  could  not  altogether 
keep  exasperation  out  of  her  voice. 

"It  may  still  reach  him,"  Ann  said. 

"That's  unlikely,"  Claudia  said,  more  humbly. 
"But  it's  possible.  I  can't  deny  that." 

"Then  he  would  know  whether  I  told  him  or  not." 

Poor  Ann.  She  had,  indeed,  something  to  get  ac- 
customed to.  Never  in  the  days  of  the  years  of  a 
sheltered  pilgrimage  had  life  shewn  itself  to  her  be- 
fore in  such  uncompromising  nakedness.  And  she 
herself,  before  an  inquisitor  who  was  somehow 
Claudia,  her  own  familiar  friend,  seemed  to  be 
stripped  bare  also.  The  inquisitor  was  kind,  but  she 
was  ruthless  .  .  .  insisted  .  .  .  spared  her  nothing  .  .  . 

"Well,  what's  done  is  done,"  she  said  at  last.  "I 
won't  say  whether  I  think  you  were  justified.  Things 
were  desperate  enough  to  appear  to  justify  you. 
There  was  . .  .  Johnny,  —  or  there  was  to  be  Johnny 
—  and  if  you  'd  succeeded,  Johnny  might  have  been 
saved,  and  for  that  —  yes,  I  would  have  accepted 
any  humiliation.  But  there  is  n't  Johnny  now.  Noth- 
ing can  alter  his  position  —  not  all  the  humiliation 
in  the  world.  I'm  free,  Claudia.  I'm  absolutely 
free.  I  Ve  bought  my  freedom  and  paid  for  it.  I 
managed  without  him,  as  you  say.  Why  should  I 
ask  anything  now?" 

"You  would  n't  be  asking,"  Claudia  said.   "It's 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  337 

he  who  is  asking.  You  'd  be  giving.  You  'd  be  giving 
all  through  —  giving  Johnny  his  father,  and  giving 
Johnny's  father  his  son,  and,  more,  oh,  more  than 
that,"  she  nodded  gravely,  "much  more.  Yes,  Ann, 
I  am  thinking  of  his  case.  In  some  ways  his  case  — 
now  —  is  harder  than  yours."  ,< 

"Have  I  a  case  at  all?"  Ann  asked. 

"What  is  he  to  me  apart  from  you?"  Claudia 
asked  harshly. 

There  was  silence  again  —  Ann,  pulling  up, 
steadied,  and  a  little  ashamed,  remembering  what, 
after  all,  she  owed  to  Claudia;  Claudia,  the  pound- 
ing of  her  heart  subsiding,  conceding  readily  enough, 
inwardly,  that  in  the  matter  of  her  interference  she 
was  being  let  down  lightly  by  a  grievously  tried  Ann. 
Each  owed  something  to  the  other.  But  Ann,  allow- 
ing herself  to  remember,  knew  suddenly  that  her 
debt  to  Claudia  was  past  paying. 

At  that  her  thoughts  swung  back  once  more  to  the 
Claudia  of  the  thousand  engaging  affectations  who 
had  stepped  from  the  train  on  a  day  which  seemed 
now  as  if  it  must  have  belonged  to  some  earlier  life. 
Even  then  Claudia,  though  she  did  not  know  it,  was 
responding.  The  very  invitation  which  had  brought 
her  was  a  cry  for  help.  If  Claudia  had  failed  her 
then  ...  if  Claudia  had  failed  her  afterwards,  had 
ever  failed  her  .  .  . 

And  what  poor  Claudia  had  been  let  in  for !  What 
she  had  been  drawn  into!  If  it  was  she  who  had  pre- 
cipitated the  catastrophe,  that  gave  her  the  more 


338  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

rights  —  gave  her  rights  which,  but  for  that  (but  for 
what  she  had  spoken  of  once  as  her  meddling),  she 
would  not  have  had  at  all.  She  had  rights.  Indispu- 
tably she  had  rights.  Was  she,  perhaps,  even  justi- 
fied? 

Claudia  became  conscious  that  Ann  again  had 
softened.  At  once  the  answering  softness  made  itself 
felt  in  her.  Another  meeting-point  seemed  to  have 
,been  reached. 

Now,  if  something  would  happen!  What  could 
happen? 

If  Coram  would  walk  in !  If  Cbram  himself  would 
but  walk  in  there  and  then!  Her  eyes  sought  the 
clock.  The  hour  it  gave  her  made  any  such  chance 
unlikely.  Yet,  if  he  could  but  divine  that  this  was 
his  moment.  It  was  his  moment.  She  looked  at  the 
door,  almost  expecting  to  see  it  opened  and  to  hear 
him  announced.  She  listened  for  the  sound  of  ap- 
proaching steps  .  .  . 

Nothing  happened. 

No  help  was  to  be  looked  for  but  that  which  by 
patience  and  perseverance  she  could  herself  supply, 
or  wrest  from  a  passive  Ann.  She  returned  to  her  at- 
tack. We  may  be  spared  repetitions;  Claudia,  less 
fortunate,  might  not.  Inch  by  inch.  Inch  by  inch. 
Ann  heard  her,  making  no  sign. 

Eleven  o'clock  struck,  and  twelve. 
Ann  remembered  that  Zelie  would  be  sitting  up 
for  her.   This,  rather  than  an  arrival  at  any  agree- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  339 

ment,  brought  the  evening  to  a  finish.  Ann  put  out 
the  lamps.  Claudia  lit  the  candles. 

Outwardly,  nothing  seemed  to  have  been  achieved. 
But  two  friends  had  not  quarrelled,  and  this  in  itself, 
while  it  spoke  for  the  qualities  of  both  of  them, 
seemed,  to  one  of  them,  to  mean  something  more 
than  that  the  bonds  of  an  old  friendship  had  stood 
heroic  tests.  They  parted  for  the  night,  moreover, 
upon  a  note  of  passable  cheerfulness  —  though  that, 
as  Claudia  perceived,  may  have  had  no  more  to  ac- 
count for  it  than  expediency,  since  Zelie,  yawning 
for  her  mistress,  was  in  the  room  at  the  door  of  which 
they  spoke  their  good-nights.  On  the  whole,  how- 
ever, Claudia  was  not  dissatisfied.  She  had,  at  least, 
contrived  to  get  those  things  said  which  it  was  most 
important  that  Ann  should  hear.  On  so  much  she 
might  sleep,  and  she  was  so  tired,  and  Ann  was  so 
tired,  that  she  believed  that,  as  before,  after  just 
such  a  disquieting  evening,  they  would  both  sleep. 

Claudia,  tired  out,  slept.  Ann,  to  her  own  surprise, 
slept  also. 

Was  everything  to  repeat  itself  in  a  piling-up  of 
repetitions?  The  morning  brought,  not  a  Coram,  but 
a  Bulkley  —  and  a  Bulkley,  if,  from  his  point  of  view, 
to  pour  out  his  gratitude  to  Ann  for  the  benefaction 
of  which  Mr.  Pargiter's  letter  had  just  apprised  him, 
from  Ann's,  for  no  other  purpose  than  again  —  oh, 
again!  to  be  the  bearer  of  the  news  that  Coram, 
whom,  say  what  she  would,  she  had  been  expecting, 


340  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

was  gone!    That  repetition,  at  least,  Ann  thought 
that  she  might  have  been  spared.    She  was  to  be 
spared  nothing,  it  seemed. 
f    "The  third  time  he  will  stay,"  Claudia  said. 

"There  won't  be  a  third  time,"  Ann  said,  and 
closed  her  lips. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  days  passed. 

Ann  was  unapproachable  again.  Her  attitude  was, 
"We  won't  speak  of  it.  I  have  listened  to  you.  You 
can't  say  I  did  n't  listen.  I  Ve  done  my  part  as  you 
have  done  yours.  If  he  had  been  here  .  .  .  but  he 
is  n't.  That  finishes  it.  Now  I  am  picking  up  the 
threads  of  my  life  again.  You  can  see  that  I  am 
not  fretting.  I'm  not  even  unhappy.  There  are 
other  things  in  life  besides  love.  I  shall  find  them. 
I  am  finding  them." 

Mr.  Bulkley,  who  boasted  no  superstitions,  was 
to  be  married  in  May,  and  Ann,  having  constituted 
herself  his  fairy  godmother,  played  the  part  gener- 
ously. Lower  Redmayne  was  to  be  overhauled  and 
put  in  order  at  once  for  the  reception  of  the  bride. 
Ann,  keenly  interested  and  full  of  ideas,  spent  a 
morning  with  Mr.  Bulkley  and  Mr.  Cranbourn  (of 
Cranbourn  and  Newington,  Builders,  Decorators, 
and  Sanitary  Engineers,  of  Windlestone) ,  going  over 
the  house  and  making  many  suggestions  for  the  com- 
fort of  its  future  mistress.  In  the  country  compara- 
tively few  of  the  smaller  country-houses  had  been 
modernized.  Bathrooms  were  not  general  then. 
Bulkley,  and  Coram  before  him,  and  generations  be- 
fore them,  had  been  content  to  tub  in  their  rooms. 
Ann  was  determined  that  Lower  Redmayne  should 


342  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

have  its  bathroom.  She  it  was  who  found  the  spot 
where  the  bathroom  could  be  added. 

"You're  bent  on  spoiling  us,"  Bulkley  protested. 
"The  future  Mrs.  Bulkley  has  n't  been  accustomed 
to  such  luxuries." 

"Let  me  have  my  own  way,"  Ann  said,  smiling. 
She  was  really  interested,  really,  as  she  had  intimated 
to  Claudia,  quite  happy.  She  forgot  nothing  —  not 
even  to  consult  Mrs.  Somers. 

Mrs.  Somers,  still  sore  over  her  recent  disap- 
pointment, and  perhaps  too  long  accustomed  to  a 
bachelor  establishment  to  view  the  prospective  ad- 
vent of  a  mistress  (where  she  herself  had  been  mis- 
tress for  so  many  years)  with  any  noticeable  enthu- 
siasm, showed  that  day  her  first  signs  of  recovering 
her  normal  cheerfulness,  and  even  of  melting.  Mrs. 
Forrester  suggested  a  new  kitchen  range.  If  Mrs. 
Somers  had  a  cherished  wish,  it  was  for  a  new  kit- 
chen range. 

"Not,"  she  said,  "but  what  I  don't  believe,  too, 
in  roasting  before  the  fire.  Still,  an  open  range  is 
awkward." 

"Tell  Mr.  Cranbourn  exactly  what  you  want," 
Ann  said. 

"They  pay  for  themselves,  'm,  do  they  not,  sir, 
in  the  saving  of  coal?" 

Mrs.  Somers  was  to  have  the  range  of  her  dreams. 

Ann,  and  Bulkley  also,  looked  at  the  old-fashioned 
open  grate  with  its  glowing  bars,  and  felt  a  vague 
regret  to  know  it  doomed  —  Ann,  though  it  was  she 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  343 

herself  who  had  doomed  it.  It  might  be  inconvenient 
but  it  had  its  very  real  part  in  the  beauty  of  the  old- 
fashioned  kitchen.  It  'went '  with  the  ancient  dresser, 
and  the  willow-pattern  plates  and  dishes,  and  the 
shining  copper  saucepans.  It  conjured  up  sounds 
and  savours  —  the  ticking  and  the  clicking  of  a  spit, 
the  cracklings  and  splutterings  of  spurting  fat,  the 
sudden  released  hiss  from  an  opened  oven  door,  the 
ecstatic  frenzy  of  the  basting;  odours  of  roastings 
and  toastings,  of  cake-makings  and  bread-bakings. 
It  stood  momentarily  to  both  of  them  for  the  symbol 
of  the  things  that  must  pass.  But  Mrs.  Somers,  in 
the  interests  of  the  bride's  housekeepings,  and  inci- 
dentally even  of  the  bride  (and  thus  of  Bulkley  him- 
self), must  be  placated. 

"It'll  be  all  as  easy  again,"  Mrs.  Somers  said. 
She  began  to  look  forward. 

So  Ann  occupied  herself. 

Where  was  Coram?  Presently  Claudia  heard  that 
he  was  in  London.  It  was  from  London,  anyway, 
that  he  had  written  to  congratulate  Bulkley  upon 
his  approaching  marriage.  So  much  Claudia  gathered 
with  other  matter,  such  as  that  his  aunt  had  not 
proved  to  be  so  ill  as  had  been  supposed,  and  that  his 
visit  thus  seemed  to  have  been  needlessly  interrupted. 
Bulkley,  though  he  shared  Mrs.  Somers's  grievance, 
was  now  so  actively  busied  with  his  own  happy  con- 
cerns that  he  could  content  himself  with  the  thought 
that  his  friend  should  be  his  and  his  Stella's  first 


344  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

visitor  after  their  marriage ;  and  Mrs.  Somers,  cheer- 
ing up,  said,  "Well,  that's  something,  anyway,"  if 
her  face  fell  a  little  at  the  recollection  —  expressed, 
to  Bulkley's  amusement,  and  to  Claudia's  as  he  re- 
lated it  to  her  —  that  all  the  same  now  she  could  no 
longer  expect  that  the  Master  should  be  given  his 
old  room! 

In  London,  was  he?  Claudia  had  to  be  content 
that  he  should  not  yet  be  on  his  way  to  Cathay  or 
Kamchatka.  While  he  was  in  England  there  was 
hope  —  nay,  though  he  had  been  at  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  there  would  have  been  hope.  But  her  dread 
undoubtedly  had  been,  and  was,  perhaps,  still,  to 
hear  that  he  had  started  again  on  his  travels.  Some- 
thing must  happen.  She  was  sure  of  that.  Not  for 
nothing  could  she  be  so  sure. 

She  looked  at  Ann,  wondering  what  went  on  be- 
hind the  placid  front  she  showed  to  the  world.  Im- 
possible to  say.  Ann  pursued  an  even  way,  calm  to 
all  appearance,  cheerful.  She  devoted  herself  to 
Johnny  openly,  spending  more  and  more  of  her  time 
with  him.  The  sight  of  Ann  and  Johnny  and  his 
nurse  or  his  nurses  in  the  big  Redmayne  barouche 
was  one  to  which  Fotheringham  and  Windlestone 
and  the  roads  of  the  neighbourhood  were  evidently 
to  become  accustomed.  Even  Claudia  saw  that 
there  was  now  no  further  occasion  for  caution. 
Johnny,  it  was  evident,  was  unquestioningly  ac» 
cepted.  His  recent  serious  illness  had  removed  the 
last  need  for  restraint.  To  a  pet  dog  so  threatened 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  345 

and  so  saved  a  fond  mistress  would  have  been  ex- 
pected to  show  an  increased  devotion.  Ann,  always 
wise,  might  give  herself  rope  and  be  in  no  danger  of 
hanging  herself.  Ann,  taking  advantage  of  circum- 
stances, gave  herself  more  rope  joyfully  and  smiled 
at  Claudia.  Claudia  smiled  back.  They  could  almost 
be  said  to  be  happy.  But  was  Ann  happy  except  in 
her  relations  with  Johnny?  Could  she  be  happy? 
And  Coram?  Claudia's  heart  ached  for  him  also. 

Ann  began  to  talk  once  more  of  altering  the 
boudoir.  Claudia  did  not  say,  "Oh,  Ann!  This 
lovely  room!"  as  she  had  said  on  an  occasion  ages 
ago  when  Ann  had  first  surprised  her  with  an  ex- 
pression of  her  dissatisfaction  with  its  decorations 
and  appointments.  Her  own  eye  had  been  trained, 
maybe,  by  and  to  the  austerer  beauty  of  those  parts 
of  the  house  (the  rest  of  it,  practically)  upon  which 
the  rather  deplorable  taste  of  the  period  had  not 
worked  its  meretricious  will. 

Ann  said,  "This  satin.  All  these  buttons.  And 
does  one  ever  really  use  these  hanging  screens?" 

But  there,  for  the  time  being,  the  matter  rested. 
She  did  not  begin  the  task  of  discarding.  Time 
enough  for  that.  She  wished,  perhaps,  for  a  clear  idea 
of  what  she  wanted  to  construct  before  she  should 
demolish.  The  room  was,  at  least,  very  comfortable. 

Was  there  an  inner  life  that  Ann  was  leading  now 
—  a  life  behind  the  life  which  was  visible  to  Claudia 
who  watched  and  could  not  help  watching?  Some- 
times Claudia  fancied  that  she  caught  glimpses 


346  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

through  the  veils  with  which  Ann  shrouded  herself 
—  glimpses  of  what?  And  what  were  these  veils? 
And  were  there  veils?  Perhaps  there  were  no  veils. 
Perhaps  Ann  was  really  calm.  Perhaps  the  revulsion 
of  feeling  was  complete,  and  she  had  not  so  much 
put  the  thought  of  Coram  from  her  heart  as  lost  in- 
terest in  one  who  had  failed  her.  Love  is  liable  to 
such  revulsions.  Not  the  least  of  the  tragedies  to 
which  love  is  subject.  It  might  be  that  Ann,  indeed, 
no  longer  loved  Coram,  and  if  she  no  longer  loved 
him,  if  she  had  reached  the  stage  of  indifference, 
the  next  stage  could  only  be  that  of  a  distaste  for 
him  which  nothing  would  overcome.  Love  may 
sleep  and  wake  out  of  sleep,  but  who  shall  bring  dead 
love  back  to  life?  Was  Ann's  love  dead?  Claudia 
did  not  think  it.  Looking  at  Ann's  face,  at  her  tran- 
quil eyes,  at  the  mouth  which  showed  no  bitter  lines, 
Claudia  did  not  think  it. 

Then  one  day  something  happened.  So  small  a 
thing.  There  had  been  a  week  of  cloudy  skies  and 
cold  rains.  The  spring  had  been,  as  it  were,  held  up. 
There  had  been  a  setback.  All  development  had 
been  arrested.  Snowflakes  had  fallen  and  nature  had 
first  paused,  then  retreated.  A  pinched  look  had 
come  over  the  woods  and  the  hedges  and  the  fields. 
Biting  winds  nipped  buds  ready  to  burst.  Tender 
leaves,  tempted  out  too  soon,  shrivelled.  Sheep 
huddled  together  under  the  lee  of  a  fence  or  a 
coppice.  In  less  sheltered  places  lambs  died.  For 
seven  days  winter  reigned.  The  birds'  chorus  was 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  347 

hushed,  the  isolated  songs  of  hardier  spirits  only 
serving  to  point  the  cessation  of  the  jubilant  sounds. 
Little  dead  rooks,  naked  and  pitiful,  lay  here  and 
there  under  the  elms  on  the  cold  wet  ground.  For 
seven  days  the  sun  hid  himself.  Winter,  winter, 
winter,  the  lengthened  days  seeming  to  lay  stress 
on  a  universal  desolateness.  At  twilight  you  were 
glad  to  shut  out  the  decline  of  each  cheerless  day. 

Then,  as  suddenly  as  the  temperature  had  fallen, 
the  temperature  rose.  The  clouds  rolled  away,  the 
wind  fell,  the  sun  shone  forth.  The  sun  was  hot.  He 
seemed  to  have  stored  up  heat  in  his  recess.  He 
flooded  the  land  with  his  warmth.  The  rush  of  the 
spring  began  that  day.  Pent  saps  flowed.  You  could 
almost  see  the  leaves  unfolding.  What  you  did  not 
see  you  felt. 

"  Look  at  the  green  crinkles,"  Claudia  said.  "Look 
at  these  little,  little  leaves.  Look!  creased  like  a 
baby's  wrists  and  ankles.  Like  Johnny's.  Don't  you 
want  to  stroke  them  —  kiss  them?  Ann,  I  saw  one 
move.  I  swear  it." 

"Claudia,  you're  ridiculous." 

But  Ann  liked  Claudia's  ridiculousness,  and 
Claudia  knew  it. 

"And  the  birds,"  Claudia  said.   "Listen." 

Solos  and  a  chorus.  A  chorus  and  solos.  A  chorus 
made  up  of  solos. 

"God  is  in  his  Heaven,"  Claudia  said;  "all  is  right 
with  the  world." 

"I  never  doubted  it,"  Ann  said. 


348  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

Was  that  an  indication,  an  intimation?  Or  was 
it  in  itself  one  of  the  veilings? 

And  then,  louder  than  the  chorus  —  or  how  could 
you  have  heard  it?  —  softer  than  the  chorus  —  for 
its  softness  was  what  distinguished  it  from  the  rest 
—  another  sound. 

Cuckoo.  Cuckoo.  Cuckoo  .  .  . 

It  was  from  that  day  that  the  watching  Claudia, 
who  yet  watched  so  unobtrusively  that  she  did  not 
appear  to  be  watching  at  all,  noticed  a  difference. 
Ann  became  restless.  This  showed  itself  in  many 
small  ways.  Chiefly  it  showed  itself  in  withdrawals, 
desultorinesses,  breakings-off .  She  would  go  from 
a  room  and  come  back  to  it.  She  would  begin  things 
and  not  finish  them.  She  would  seat  herself  at  the 
piano  and  leave  it  without  having  played,  or  she 
would  stop  playing  in  the  middle  of  a  bar.  She  did 
not,  however,  seem  to  be  driven,  as  once  she  had 
been  driven.  It  was  rather  as  if  she  were  awaking 
to  some  voice  —  whether  from  within  or  without 
Claudia  could  not  tell  —  which  laid  behests  on  her 
that  she  knew  not  how  to  perform  or  was  reluctant 
to  perform.  It  called  her  away  from  whatever  she 
might  be  doing.  It  called  her  often  to  the  nursery 
and  Johnny,  but  often  it  only  called  her,  Claudia 
believed,  into  one  or  another  of  the  many  empty 
rooms.  It  called  her  into  the  garden.  Claudia  could 
see  her  really  listening,  when  it  was  into  the  gar- 
den that  it  called  her. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  349 

How  the  cuckoo  called  that  year!  The  country- 
side pulsed  with  his  calling.  His  calling  was  as 
the  audible  sound  of  a  pulse  or  of  the  spring  itself 
breathing.  Was  it  he  who  was  disturbing? 

At  that,  something  tugged  at  Claudia's  mind. 
Somewhere,  somewhen,  she  or  Ann  had  spoken  of 
the  cuckoo.  Not  lately.  Not  for  a  long  time.  But 
here,  she  thought,  at  Redmayne.  When,  then? 
Why?  In  what  connection? 

Suddenly  she  remembered.  Some  words  of  Ann's 
came  back  to  her  with  words  of  her  own.  She  had 
asked  Ann  how  it  came  that  at  that  time  of  year 
she  was  not  in  London.  Across  a  gulf  of  nearly  two 
years  she  remembered  Ann's  answer  word  for  word. 

"  I  think  it  was  the  cuckoo,"  Ann  had  said,  "that 
was  primarily  responsible.  I  heard  him  one  day  — 
or  rather  I  listened  to  him." 

Ann  had  distinguished  between  hearing  and  listen- 
ing, and  this,  perhaps,  had  prompted  Claudia's  next 
question.  That,  too,  she  remembered. 

"What  did  he  tell  you?" 

How  well  she  remembered ! 

"To  open  my  eyes  and  look  about  me." 

"And  I  said,"  Claudia  said  to  herself,  "that  that 
was  the  Serpent's  advice  to  Eve,  and  Ann  said 
that  nevertheless  she  thought  she  would  take  it." 

Claudia  had  it  all.  How  significant  these  words 
—  idle  words  then  —  seemed  now!  Ann  had  lis- 
tened to  the  Serpent,  indeed.  That  appeared  to  con- 
nect the  cuckoo  with  her  first  disturbance;  it  was 


350  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

quite  plainly  the  sound  of  the  cuckoo  that  had  dis- 
turbed Ann  again  now. 

There  was  something  which  Ann  wanted  to  do 
and  dared  not  do,  or  was  urged  to  do  and  shrank 
from  doing.  Some  call  had  been  made  to  her  in  the 
cuckoo's  call.  Would  she  answer  it? 


CHAPTER  VI 

ONE  day,  towards  the  end  of  April,  Ann  went  on 
a  short  journey.  She  did  not  tell  Claudia  where  she 
was  going,  nor  ask  her  to  accompany  her. 

"Can  you  amuse  yourself  to-morrow  for  a  few 
hours?"  she  said  the  evening  before.  "I  have  to 
leave  you  for  the  afternoon." 

"My  dear,  of  course." 

That  was  all.  The  next  day  at  two  o'clock, 
luncheon  having  been  put  forward  by  half  an  hour, 
the  carriage  took  Ann  to  the  station,  where  she  dis- 
missed it  with  instructions  that  it  was  to  come  back 
for  her  at  a  quarter  to  six.  Then,  the  carriage  gone, 
she  went  into  the  booking-office  and  took  a  ticket. 
The  ticket  she  took  was  for  Handleton,  and  Handle- 
ton  was  a  village  some  eighteen  miles  down  the  line. 
The  clerk  in  the  booking-office,  as  he  gave  her  the 
ticket,  said,  "Handleton,  'm,"  as  if  to  make  sure 
that  he  had  heard  aright.  And  Ann  said,  "Yes, 
Handleton." 

The  name,  upon  which  stress  thus  seemed  to  be 
laid,  was  commonplace  enough.  But  it  might  have 
conveyed  something  to  Claudia.  It  was  because, 
though  it  might  not,  it  yet  equally  might,  have  con- 
veyed something  to  her,  that  Ann  had  not  men- 
tioned it.  Yet  (and  here  was  food  for  thought)  she 
hardly  knew  why  she  should  not  wish  Claudia  to 


352  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

know  that  her  errand  was  to  Handleton.  As  she 
waited  for  the  train,  she  smiled  to  herself  at  the 
booking-clerk's  implied  surprise.  What,  it  seemed  to 
say,  could  Mrs.  Forrester  of  Redmayne  have  to  do 
at  Handleton? 

The  train  came  in  and  she  took  her  seat.  She 
chose  an  empty  compartment,  and  she  let  down  both 
windows  and  sat  with  the  soft  but  keen  spring  airs 
stirring  the  furs  at  her  throat.  She  was  very  simply 
dressed  —  much  more  simply  dressed  than  the  lady 
who  had  once  walked  through  a  wood.  Her  dark 
clothes  were  in  rather  striking  contrast  to  the 
brightness  of  the  day.  But  though  she  had  clad 
herself  in  sober  hues  on  a  day  which  gave  and  asked 
for  colour,  her  mental  and  spiritual  aspect  was  in 
no  way  sombre.  She  did  not  look  unhappy.  She  was 
a  little  paler  than  usual,  but  her  pallor  was  the  pallor 
of  intentness,  not  of  unhappiness,  and  her  expression, 
her  general  appearance  apart,  had  something  that 
was,  indeed,  actively  reminiscent  of  that  questing 
lady  who,  with  a  beating  heart  and  wonder  and  an- 
ticipation in  her  eyes,  had  made  her  fateful  voyage 
of  exploration  and  discovery. 

The  train  was  a  slow  train  or  it  would  not  have 
stopped  at  the  station  she  wanted.  It  stopped  every- 
where —  at  Crossway,  Landon  Stoke,  Crown  Ash, 
Medsley,  villages  which  Ann  knew  on  her  drives, 
but  to  none  of  which  had  she  ever  before  gone  by 
train.  Her_xlrives  in  the  direction  in  which  she  w*as 
travelling  had  not  taken  her  beyond  Medsley. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  353 

Handleton,  when  she  should  reach  it,  would  be  new 
ground  to  her.  This  expedition,  then,  like  that 
other,  was  one  of  exploration. 

No  one  got  into  her  carriage  at  any  of  the  stations 
at  which  the  train  stopped.  Ann  would  see  a  single 
porter,  and  one  or  two  persons,  on  an  otherwise  empty 
platform.  One  or  two  passengers  would  alight.  The 
porter  would  shut  the  doors.  From  the  window  Ann 
would  see  the  passengers  who  had  alighted  give  him 
their  tickets  as  they  passed.  At  Crown  Ash  there 
were  milk-cans  which  were  rolled  along  with  much 
noise.  There  was  a  farmer  with  a  couple  of  dogs 
on  a  leash.  There  were  three  women  with  market- 
baskets.  There  was  a  little  girl  with  toothache  — 
a  bandaged  face.  No  one  she  knew. 

She  was,  as  we  say  in  the  slipshod  way  of  these 
days,  'just  as  glad.'  Yet  there  was  no  mystery  in  her 
expedition.  The  air  of  mystery  that  it  seemed  to 
have  was  due  to  nothing  more  than  that  she  had 
kept  its  purpose  from  Claudia.  A  mistress  visits  a 
former  servant.  What  of  mystery  in  that?  There 
was  no  real  reason  why  she  should  not  have  told 
Claudia.  Ultimately,  perhaps  at  once  even,  she 
would  tell  her.  Claudia,  with  her  "My  dear,  of 
course,"  had  asked  no  questions.  She  had  said  no 
more,  and  made  no  opening  for  Ann  to  say  more,  not 
wishing,  probably,  to  show  that  she  even  perceived 
the  reticence  that  lay  under  Ann's  announcement. 
Claudia's  tact  could  be  counted  on  at  all  times. 
But,  as  a  woman,  Ann  could  guess  at  Claudia's 


354  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

guessings.  The  first  of  them  —  that  she,  Ann,  was 
going  to  see  Timothy  Coram  —  would  be  dismissed 
immediately  for  its  wildness;  but  that  her  expedi- 
tion, whatever  its  nature,  was  connected  in  some 
way  with  him,  would  not  be  dismissed  at  all.  Ann 
by  her  very  reticence  had  made  this  sure.  Was  it, 
then,  that  in  her  present  action  she  herself  saw, 
and  recognized  that  she  saw,  the  seeds  of  capitula- 
tion? Perhaps  she  did,  indeed,  see  them.  The  time, 
anyway,  was  not  yet.  There  is  a  long  time  between 
seedtime  and  harvest. 

The  train  as  it  left  Medsley  plunged  into  a  tunnel. 
The  air  in  the  carriage  became  acrid,  and  Ann  put 
up  the  windows.  The  effort,  and  the  change  from  the 
brilliant  light  of  the  open  day  to  the  comparative 
gloom  of  the  lamplight,  diverted  the  current  of  her 
thoughts.  A  little  pool  of  oil  lay  in  the  bottom  of  the 
glass  of  the  lamp,  and  swayed  with  the  swayings  of 
the  train.  Ann  watched  it  with  the  fascinated  gaze 
of  a  child.  It  swayed  this  way,  and  a  little  more  this 
way;  then  that,  and  perhaps  a  little  more  that;  and 
then  washed  smoothly  back  again.  It  was  as  the 
outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  train's  leanings.  It 
never  swayed  very  far,  but  it  was  also  never  quite 
still.  She  watched  it,  as  if  its  movements  held  a  mean- 
ing for  her.  They  held  no  meaning.  Presently,  con- 
scious of  the  strain  of  looking  up,  and  of  the  discom- 
fort of  steadfastly  regarding  a  flame,  she  turned  her 
eyes  away. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  355 

A  long  tunnel;  blackness  behind  the  panes,  with 
here  and  there  a  glistening  where  the  passing  lights 
caught  wet  patches;  a  rushing  blackness.  The  roar 
of  the  wheels  seemed  the  sound  of  the  rushing 
blackness.  In  the  twilight  of  the  compartment  which 
she  had  chosen  because  it  was  empty  or,  more  accur- 
ately, —  since  many  others  were  empty  also,  —  the 
emptiness  of  which  she  had  welcomed,  she  began  to 
feel  lonely.  She  was  glad  when  light  showed  on  the 
walls  of  the  tunnel,  —  the  noise  of  the  wheels  taking 
quite  a  different  sound,  as  if  the  roar  of  them  had, 
indeed,  been  the  sound  of  the  rushing  blackness,  — 
and  after  a  moment  or  two  of  rapidly  diminishing 
darkness,  the  train  emerged  into  the  open. 

She  blinked  in  the  blaze  of  light. 

What  did  that  remind  her  of?  What  memory 
stirred  in  her?  Why,  suddenly,  did  she  think  of  mag- 
pies? Black,  white  —  was  it  that?  The  black  of  the 
tunnel,  the  white  of  the  sun's  glare?  That,  yes;  but 
not  quite  that.  The  blinking  rather  than  what  caused 
the  blinking.  She,  in  her  turn,  even  as  Claudia. so 
recently  in  hers,  traced  a  memory  across  the  years 
to  its  source. 

She  was  nearing  Handleton  now,  and  she  saw 
that  the  country  into  which  the  train  had  issued 
from  the  tunnel  was  of  an  entirely  different  char- 
acter from  that  which  it  had  left  on  the  other  side  of 
the  hill.  She  had  left  the  oaks  and  the  elms  and  the 
beeches  of  her  own  country  behind  her,  and  was  in 
a  wilder  country  of  pine  and  bracken  and  furze. 


356  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

She  was  the  only  passenger  to  alight  at  Handleton 
—  a  little  wayside  station  with  its  name  picked  out 
in  white  flints,  and  the  usual  single  porter. 

The  porter  was  at  the  far  end  of  the  platform 
where  stood  more  milk-cans.  He  put  them  into  a 
van  rapidly  —  with  no  unnecessary  noise,  Ann  ob- 
served —  and  then  came  towards  Ann  for  her  ticket. 
She  had  not  really  been  kept  waiting,  for  the  gate 
which  led  from  the  station  to  the  road  was  at  the  end 
of  the  platform  where  the  milk-cans  had  been  stand- 
ing; but  as  he  touched  his  cap  he  said,  "  Beg  pardon, 
*m,"  and  she  understood  that  he  was  apologizing 
to  her  for  having  seen  to  the  milk-cans  before  attend- 
ing to  her. 

"  I  Ve  no  luggage,"  Ann  said. 

As  he  put  out  his  hand  for  her  ticket  he  withdrew 
it  suddenly,  before  taking  the  ticket  from  her,  to 
touch  his  cap  once  more,  with  another  but  somehow 
a  different  sort  of  "I  beg  pardon,  *m."  Then  he 
remembered  the  train,  shut  the  door  of  the  carriage 
from  which  Ann  had  stepped,  and  gave  the  guard  his 
signal. 

Ann,  her  attention  thus  called  to  him,  found  her- 
self considering  him.  He  seemed  to  have  recognized 
her.  He  was  about  twenty-four,  perhaps  a  little 
older,  and  what  struck  you  first  in  his  appearance 
was  his  firm,  upstanding  figure.  He  was  unusually 
well  built.  You  could  see  that  the  legs  in  the  rough 
corduroy  trousers  were  straight  and  shapely,  and 
that  the  arms  under  the  sleeves  of  his  porter's 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  357 

sleeved  waistcoat  were  muscular  and  very  strong.  He 
was  at  once  sturdy  and  lithe.  All  this  she  saw,  though 
she  only  looked,  perhaps,  at  his  face.  His  face  was 
comely  and  very  kindly.  He  had  clear  blue  eyes, 
frank  in  their  expression,  and  a  good  mouth.  He  had 
unusually  good  white  teeth.  His  attitude  was  that  of 
a  well-mannered,  deferential  servant. 

"Have  I  seen  you  before?"  Ann  said. 

"Oh,  no,  'm.   But  I  come  from  Fotheringham." 

She  supposed  him  to  mean  the  station. 

"Ah,  then  probably  I  have,"  she  said. 

The  train  had  moved  out  of  the  station,  and  she 
began  to  walk  up  the  platform  towards  the  gate. 

"Which  is  the  way  to  the  village?" 

"Straight  down  the  road  yonder,  'm.  About  a 
quarter  of  a  mile.  You  pass  the  crossroads,  but 
keep  straight  on.  You  '11  see  the  church,  'm,  before 
you." 

"Ah,  it  is  the  Rectory  I  want,"  Ann  said. 

"That's  next  to  the  church,  'm.  The  only  big 
house.  You  can't  miss  it." 

Ann  thanked  him  and  passed  through  the  gate. 
He  touched  his  cap  again  and  went  on  to  the  signal- 
box.  She  saw  him  mount  the  steps. 

She  carried  a  pleasant  impression  of  him  down  the 
sunny  road  —  an  impression  of  something  in  key 
with  the  sunny  day. 

The  air  was  full  of  the  scent  of  pines.  Breathing 
it  deeply  into  her  lungs,  Ann  pursued  her  way. 


358  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

When  Lucy  Edget  left  Redmayne  she  had  gone 
to  her  home  at  Handleton.  Ann  had  written  to  her 
mother,  and  had  had  some  correspondence  with  the 
rector  of  the  parish.  Through  the  clergyman  she 
had  made  provision  for  the  girl's  immediate  future. 
There  the  matter  had  ended.  She  had  sometimes 
wondered  that,  after  the  correspondence  which  had 
passed  between  her  and  Mr.  Broxley  while  the  neces- 
sary arrangements  were  being  made,  she  should  have 
heard  no  more  from  him,  but,  her  own  desperate 
troubles  supervening,  the  matter  had  passed  from 
her  mind.  From  time  to  time  it  had  come  into  her 
mind  again.  But  she  had  done  all  that  seemed  to 
be  required  of  her,  had  put  the  unhappy  business 
into  the  hands  best  qualified  to  deal  with  it  kindly 
and  wisely,  and  it  was  not  till  she  was  at  Brighton, 
recovering  from  her  illness,  that  the  thought  of  Lucy 
had  come  to  her  with  any  real  persistence.  She  had 
not  heard  from  Lucy  herself  since  an  answer  she  had 
received  from  her  to  a  letter  which  she  had  written 
to  her,  in  the  very  early  days  of  all,  to  bid  her  be  of 
good  courage  and  to  tell  her  that  Mr.  Broxley  had 
promised  that  she  should  be  looked  after.  Lucy 
would  not  identify  her  with  what  Mr.  Broxley 
might  do  for  her,  for  Ann  had  desired  that  her  bene- 
factions should  not  be  associated  with  her  name. 
It  was  not  to  be  expected,  then,  that  Lucy  would 
write;  but  why  had  not  Mr.  Broxley  written?  Since 
those  curious  thoughts  at  Brighton, the  wish  to  know* 
what  had  become  of  her,  and  to  know  that  all  was 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  359 

well  with  her,  had  been  superseded  by  one  more  ur- 
gent still.  This  was  a  wish  which,  for  all  its  urgency, 
perhaps  even  because  of  its  very  urgency,  she  had 
combated  strenuously.  She  wished  to  see  Lucy. 
She  wished  to  hear  from  Lucy's  own  lips  the  answer 
to  those  questions  which  she  had  only  dreamt  —  but 
had  so  strangely  dreamt  —  that  she  had  put  to  her. 
For  all  that  it  implied  she  had  resisted  this  wish  till 
she  could  resist  it  no  longer.  Here  she  was,  then, 
on  her  way,  if  not  to  see  Lucy,  to  discover,  at  least, 
where  she  was  to  be  found. 

She  came  to  the  crossroads  and  passed  them.  The 
tower  of  the  church  showed  then  above  the  trees 
on  her  right.  A  few  minutes  later  she  was  ringing 
the  bell  at  the  Rectory. 

An  elderly  maidservant  answered  her  ring,  and 
she  asked  for  Mr.  Broxley.  She  learnt  at  once  why 
Mr.  Broxley  had  not  written.  Mr.  Broxley  had  died 
while  she  was  abroad. 

"Nearly  a  year  and  a  half  ago,  'm.  We've  been 
here  close  on  fourteen  months.  It's  the  Reverend 
Sheffield  now.  The  master  was  appointed  to  the 
living  when  the  Reverend  Broxley  died.  Yes,  just 
close  on  fourteen  months  we've  been  here  now." 

Ann  asked  if  Mr.  Sheffield  was  in.  He  was  out, 
she  heard  to  her  regret,  and  not  expected  in  till  late 
in  the  afternoon.  There  was  no  Mrs.  Sheffield.  The 
Reverend  Sheffield  was  a  widower.  Would  the  lady 
like  to  leave  any  message? 

But  Ann  had  no  message  to  leave. 


36o  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

"Can  you  tell  me,  perhaps,  where  Mrs.  Edget 
lives?" 

Mrs.  Edget?  Oh,  yes.  The  Reverend  Sheffield  got 
his  eggs  off  Mrs.  Edget.  Mrs.  Edget  lived  in  the  cot- 
tage past  the  turnpike.  The  turn  to  the  left  at  the 
crossroads.  You  kept  straight  on  till  you  came  to 
the  turnpike,  and  then  took  the  lane  on  your  right. 
How  far?  About  a  mile  and  three  quarters  —  well, 
to  be  ©n  the  safe  side,  say  two  miles.  Distances 
were  generally  greater  than  one  thought  for.  Say 
two  miles. 

Ann  looked  at  her  watch.  She  could  just  do  it.  But 
she  would  have  no  time  to  spare.  And  if  Lucy  was 
not  living  at  home,  she  would  not  see  Lucy.  She 
would  not  be  able  to  wait  to  see  Lucy  even  if  she 
should  find  that  Lucy  was  still  in  the  neighbour- 
hood. She  knew  suddenly  how  she  had  counted  on 
seeing  Lucy. 

She  thanked  the  woman  and  turned  away.  The 
circumstances  made  it  inexpedient  that  she  should 
ask  questions  of  a  stranger.  She  did  not  know  how 
far  the  circumstances  might  be  known.  As  she  was 
here  she  must  go  on  to  Mrs.  Edget's,  and,  if  Lucy 
was  not  there,  leave  the  seeing  of  Lucy,  if  it  should 
be  possible  to  see  her,  to  another  day.  She  should 
have  written  to  make  enquiries  before  she  came.  She 
had  acted  on  an  impulse  and  regretted  it. 

She  had  reached  the  gate  when  she  heard  footsteps 
behind  her. 

"Would  Mrs.  Tillet  do,  'm?" 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  361 

"Mrs.  Tillet?" 

"Mrs.  Edget's  daughter,  'm?" 

Ann's  heart  leapt. 

"She  lives  quite  near,  'm.  Just  through  the  vil- 
lage. The  cottage  by  the  blacksmith's.  Any  one  will 
show  you,  'm." 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  Ann  said.  '"Yes,  I  will  go  and 
see  Mrs.  Tillet.  That  may  save  me  the  walk.  I  am 
very  much  obliged  to  you." 

And  so,  though  the  fates  had  seemed  against  her, 
her  visit  was  like  to  be  not  entirely  fruitless.  A  few 
minutes  brought  her  to  the  blacksmith's. 

The  cottage  just  beyond  it  must  be  the  cottage 
she  sought.  It  stood  back  a  little  from  the  road,  from 
which  it  was  divided  by  a  wooden  paling.  The  gar- 
den behind  this  was  very  neatly  kept. 

Mrs.  Edget  might  have  other  daughters,  but  Ann 
felt  sure  that  in  Mrs.  Tillet  she  would  find  the  Lucy 
Edget  she  had  come  to  Handleton  to  see. 

Some  one  was  singing  inside  the  cottage.  Ann 
knocked.  The  singing  did  not  cease  for  a  moment  or 
two,  and  then  ceased. 

The  door  opened. 

Ann  stayed  with  Lucy  an  hour;  but  in  the  course 
of  that  hour,  ten  minutes,  though  they  talked  much, 
gave  her  the  answer  to  all  she  wished  to  know.  She 
saw  Lucy's  boy,  and  held  him  in  her  arms.  Lucy's 
face,  by  turns  white  and  flushed,  flushed  with  pleas- 
ure then.  Lucy's  boy,  six  months  older  than  her 


362  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

own,  had,  Ann  was  interested  and  somehow  cordially 
pleased  to  recognize,  the  porter's  clear  blue  eyes. 
Lucy's  face  was  radiant  when  Ann  welcomed  joyfully 
her  shy  offer  of  tea.  All  but  that  ten  minutes  of  en- 
lightenment was,  however,  beside  the  point. 

"Oh,  'm,"  was  what  Lucy  said,  "I  don't  defend 
myself.  I  can't.  Wrong  is  wrong,  'm ;  I  know  that. 
But  you  Ve  seen  Tillet,  'm.  It  was  a  constant  ache. 
I  used  to  lie  awake  crying.  I  'm  a  working  girl  and 
a  lady  could  n't  understand." 

"I  think  I  can  understand,"  Ann  said  gently. 

"And  I  was  weak,  I  know.  Don't  think  Tillet  was 
all  to  blame.  An  arm  round  one  .  .  .  but  —  here 's 
where  he  was  n't  to  blame  —  I  —  I  wanted  it  round 
me.  He  was  n't  so  much  to  blame  as  me,  except  he 
was  n't  thinking  of  marriage  —  not  then.  He  was  so 
young  like  to  tie  himself  up.  A  woman  wants  to  be 
bound.  It  comes  natural  to  a  woman,  'm,  does  n't 
it?  But  with  a  man,  sometimes,  it  will  be  more  of  a 
surrender  like.  And  afterwards,  you  see,  I  could  n't 
bring  myself  to  tell  Tillet,  and  he  did  n't  know. 
That 's  how  it  was.  There  was  no  excuse  for  me.  I  'd 
been  brought  up  different.  But,  oh,  'm,  I  did  n't 
seem  to  care  and  I  was  so  dreadfully  unhappy  for 
him.  It  was  a  way  ...  If  I  had  n't,  others  would. 
You've  seen  Tillet.  I  wanted  him  .  .  ." 

After  a  long  pause. 

"I'm  very  happy,  'm.  Though  I  suppose  people 
would  say  that  I  ought  n't  to  be.  And  yet  I  do7*t 
know.  You  see  Jimmy  was  born  in  wedlock." 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  363 

After  a  longer  pause. 

"And  Tillet,  'm,  he's  happy.  At  rest  like.  They 
let  him  alone.  I  suppose  they  wanted  him,  too. 
Sometimes  I  think  ..." 

"Yes,  Lucy?" 

Lucy  dried  her  eyes.  Ann's  own  eyes  were  blinded. 

"  Tillet 's  a  good  husband.  Sometimes  I  think  I'm 
a  very  lucky  woman." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THREE  days  later  Claudia  was  writing  a  letter. 
She  had  written  one  once  which  had  not  carried. 
This  one  would  not  miscarry. 

Three  things  had  happened ;  one  for  each  day  of 
the  three  days.  She  knew  herself  again  to  be  med- 
dling, but  three  things  had  happened.  She  smiled 
to  herself  at  a  thought.  She  had  tried  straightness. 
If  something  that  she  had  done  —  something, 
rather,  that  she  had  not  done  —  was  not  straight, 
she  could  not  help  it !  But  about  the  letter  which  she 
was  writing  she  had  no  misgivings  whatever.  This, 
if  it  was  flagrant  meddling  where  she  had  silently 
implied  that  she  would  meddle  no  more,  was  not 
disloyalty.  It  was  an  act  of  courage  —  if  of  the 
courage  that  you  had  to  take  in  both  hands,  shut- 
ting your  eyes,  holding  your  breath,  waiting  blindly 
(yet  somehow  with  a  twinkle  in  your  closed  eyes!) 
for  what  might  follow. 

Ann,  who  was  proud,  had  yet  no  pettiness  of 
pride,  and  had  told  her  of  her  visit  to  Handleton, 
and  what  she  had  learnt  there.  The  first  of  the  three 
days  gave  her  that,  with  all  which  that  admitted  and 
implied.  Ann  need  only  have  kept  silence,  but  Ann, 
impressed,  perhaps,  in  spite  of  herself,  had  let  her 
see;  and  Claudia,  always  clear-seeing,  had  seen. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  365 

The  second  day  had  brought  her  news  that  had 
made  her  heart  stand  still.  She  had  met  Bulkley  and 
heard  from  him  what  she  most  feared  to  hear.  Coram 
was  going  abroad. 

"Abroad!"  She  startled  him  with  the  directness 
of  her  "When?"  She  had  shot  it  at  him  without 
giving  herself  time  to  think. 

"Almost  at  once.   In  a  fortnight." 

He  looked  his  surprise.  As  Ann,  before  her,,  had 
once  retrieved  what  she  saw  to  be  a  blunder,  so 
Claudia  retrieved  hers. 

"Before  your  wedding?"  she  said. 

"Yes.  It 's  too  bad  of  him.  I  can't  make  him  out 
these  times." 

She  saw  that  her  red-herring  had  achieved  its 
purpose.  But  she  must  know  everything  that  he 
might  have  to  tell  her  now. 

"Abroad?"  she  said  again.  "You  mean  just  the 
Continent  —  Italy  or  somewhere?" 

She  knew  that  he  did  not. 

"No,"  he  said.  "That's  it.  Off  on  histravels 
again.  Japan." 

Japan!  What  Claudia  (with  Ann)  thought  of  as 
the  Other  side  of  the  World. 

"The  wandering  spirit,  indeed,"  Claudia  said. 
"He'll  come  down,  anyway,  to  say  good-bye,"  she 
ventured,  presently. 

But  Bulkley  shook  his  head. 

"I  don't  think  so,"  he  said.  "I  should  say  not, 
from  what  he  says  in  his  letter." 


366  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

He  was  plainly  perturbed. 

"I  can't  make  him  out,"  he  said  again.  "Mrs. 
Nanson,  does  he  think,  can  he  think,  that  I've 
turned  him  out?" 

"He  could  n't  think  that,"  Claudia  said.  "No, 
you  're  strange  creatures,  Mr.  Bulkley,  —  much 
stranger  than  we  are.  Just  the  wandering  spirit.  It 
takes  you  all  sometimes." 

She  nodded  and  smiled  and  was  moving  away. 

"The  alterations  nearly  finished?  Yes,  I  must 
come  and  see  them.  I  '11  get  Mrs.  Forrester  to  take 
me  one  day."  Then,  foresight,  or  a  very  inspiration, 
prompting  her:  "If  Mr.  Coram  does  n't  come  down 
we  shall  have  to  write  him  our  good-byes.  Is  he  still 
in  London?  " 

"Brown's  Hotel." 

So  much  for  what  the  second  day  gave  her.  All 
the  rest  of  it  she  spent  in  a  fever  of  perplexity. 
Whether  to  tell  Ann  now,  or  to  wait  till  Ann  heard, 
and  be  guided  then  by  what  she  should  see?  Ann 
was  melting.  Her  visit  to  Lucy  had  had  profound 
results.  Processes  were  at  work  in  Ann  at  which 
Claudia,  guessing,  hardly  dared  to  guess.  But  Ann 
was  as  strange  as  Claudia  had  told  Bulkley  that 
only  men  were.  The  day  passed  without  her  having 
told  her. 

The  third  day  came  with  its  giving.  But,  for  our 
clear  understanding  of  what  the  third  day  gave  her, 
we  must  know  what  she  had  done  with  the  hours  of 
the  first. 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  367 

When  the  carriage  had  started  which  bore  Ann  to 
the  station  (Whitcombe,  that  nearer  station  which 
Redmayne  sometimes  used,  and  at  which  she, 
Claudia,  had  been  met  on  the  day  when  she  arrived, 
and  had  seen  Coram  for  the  first  time),  Claudia, 
already  intrigued  and  excited,  but  learning  now 
from  Ann's  directions  to  the  footman,  that  the 
mysterious  expedition  was  taking  her  somewhere  by 
train,  went  back  into  the  house,  making  guesses 
really  as  wild  as  Ann's  intuitions  had  divined.  Some- 
thing was  happening.  Claudia  was  sure  of  it.  She 
did  wonder  for  a  moment  whether  Ann  was  going 
to  meet  Coram.  This,  as  Ann  supposed,  she  did  re- 
ject for  its  improbability,  but  her  joyous  excitement 
did  not  abate.  Rather  did  it  increase.  Her  thoughts 
played  round  Ann,  and  everything  that  it  was  pos- 
sible or  impossible  that  Ann  might  be  doing.  She 
did  not  think  of  Lucy,  Lucy's  case  naturally  con- 
veying nothing  to  her  in  its  possible  bearing  on 
Ann's.  But  in  every  other  direction  her  conjectures 
ranged  more  and  more  widely.  She  gave  up  her 
guessings  when  she  perceived  that  this  time  she 
could  not  guess  nor  hope  to  guess,  and  resigned  her- 
self to  waiting  till  Ann  should  tell  her.  If,  that  was, 
Ann  should  see  fit  to  tell  her!  She  believed  that 
Ann  would  tell  her.  Meanwhile  Whitcombe  —  the 
name  with  its  associations  —  took  her  back  to  the 
beginnings  of  things.  She  remembered  something 
that  Ann  had  told  her  —  something  which  had,  as 
she  had  expressed  it  to  herself  at  the  time,  loomed 


368  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

large  in  all  that  Ann  had  told  her,  but  which  she  had 
never  understood.  Ann  had  spoken  to  her  of  a  walk 
which  she  had  taken,  and  which  had  been  the  begin- 
ning of  everything.  A  wood,  a  strange  place  in  the 
wood,  a  statue  in  the  strange  place.  What  did  these 
things  mean?  She  had  never  been  for  this  walk  her- 
self, seen  the  strange  place,  the  mysterious  statue. 
Why,  when  she  came  to  think  of  it?  It  might  have 
been  looked  for  that  Ann,  as  she  had  spoken  of  the 
spot,  would  have  shown  it  to  her.  She  had  not  shown 
it  to  her,  nor  suggested  that  she  should  visit  it. 
But  equally  she  had  not  said,  had  not  so  much  as 
hinted,  that  she  did  not  wish  her  to  see  it.  She  had, 
moreover,  indicated  its  direction  when  she  described 
it,  spoken  of  the  bridle  path  through  the  wood  by 
which  it  was  approached. 

Claudia,  in  her  preoccupation,  had  gone  into  the 
boudoir  and  was  standing  now  at  the  window  from 
which  she  had  had  that  glimpse  of  Ann  and  Coram 
which  had  had  such  dire  effects  upon  their  joint  and 
even  their  separate  destinies.  Perhaps  if  she  had  not 
seen  their  parting  then,  and  the  look  with  which 
Coram  had  followed  Ann  as  she  left  him  and  came 
towards  the  house,  she  would  not  have  come  at  all  to 
that  fatal  conclusion  at  which,  with  such  momentous 
and  disastrous  results,  she  had  then  rushed.  Useless 
to  conjecture  now  what  would  have  happened  if  she 
had  not  chanced,  or  been  fated,  at  a  certain  moment 
in  her  life,  and  the  life  of  Ann  and  the  life  of  Coram, 
to  look  out  of  that  window.  She  had  looked  out  of 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  369 

it  and  what  was  done  was  done.  But,  as  she  looked 
out  of  it  now,  she  knew  suddenly  whence  at  that 
particular  moment  Ann  and  Coram  had  come.  She 
remembered  the  day  so  well  and  something  of  odd- 
ness  in  its  happenings.  Ann  and  she  had  driven  to 
Fotheringham.  They  had  been  light-hearted  and 
had  laughed  at  the  sight  of  the  ridiculous  bathers. 
Ann  outwardly  had  been  as  light-hearted  as  she, 
though  inwardly  with  a  reserve  which  Claudia  had 
been  conscious  of  rather  than  had  perceived.  But 
without  apparent  reason  Ann's  light-heartedness  had 
changed  into  something  that  was  restless  and  nerve- 
racked  and  disturbed  and  disturbing.  When  they 
had  reached  home  she  had  slipped  away.  When  next 
Claudia  had  seen  her  she  was  calm,  softened,  happy. 
She  remembered  Ann's  face  against  hers  and  the 
"You'll  make  allowances  for  me,  I  know,"  which 
had  told  her  so  much. 

What  was  this  spot  to  which  Ann  fled  for  comfort 
or  solace  or  help?  What  was  the  figure  that  presided 
over  it? 

From  wondering  to  wishing  to  see  was  a  short 
step ;  from  wishing  to  see  to  determining  to  see  took 
less  time  than  it  took  Claudia  to  put  on  her  hat  and 
coat. 

So  it  came  that  on  the  day  of  Ann's  pilgrimage  to 
Handleton,  Claudia  made  a  pilgrimage  of  her  own. 
She  found  the  right  entrance  to  the  wood,  she  found 
the  bridle  path,  and  in  time  she  found  the  circle. 
She  entered  with  just  the  faintest  sense  of  awe.  The 


370  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

place  had  certainly  something  which  seized  upon 
your  imagination,  and  might  even,  she  could  con- 
ceive, play  tricks  with  it.  The  spot  had  an  atmos- 
phere of  its  own,  strange  (you  could  not  avoid  the 
word  which  Ann  had  used  any  more  than,  in  the 
same  connection,  you  could  avoid  the  word  '  myste- 
rious'), subtle,  perverse,  and  yet,  somehow,  of  its  es- 
sence natural,  attuned  to  or  in  key  with  Nature  her- 
self. Some  words  that  were  not  written  then,  nor  to 
be  written  for  another  twenty  years,  would,  if  she 
could  have  known  them,  have  crystallized  for  her 
what  she  felt.  The  Law  of  the  Jungle  reigned  in  the 
circle.  The  circle  knew  the  Law  of  the  Jungle,  which 
was  the  Law  of  Nature,  and  knew  no  other  law.  In- 
fluences were  here  that  were  older  than  man  or  man's 
laws.  Claudia,  her  widow's  eyes  as  round  as  saucers, 
understood  all  that  in  Ann's  story  had  heretofore 
puzzled  her. 

Like  Ann  she  stood  before  the  Waiting  Boy. 

As  she  stood  there  something  troubled  her  —  not 
the  boy's  beauty,  though  that  troubled  her  vaguely 
—  a  scent,  sweet,  pricking,  passing  sweet.  She 
looked  about  her  and  saw  the  sweet-briar,  from 
which,  though  she  did  not  know  this,  Coram  had 
once  plucked  a  leaf.  The  beauty  of  the  boy's  pose 
and  poise  was  troubling,  though.  It  made  you  want 
to  do  homage  to  it.  We  know,  though  Claudia  did 
not,  what  it  had  made  Ann  do.  Warm  flesh  against 
warmed  stone ;  Ann's  face  laid  for  a  moment  against 
the  chiselled  face  that  had  so  troubled  her.  These 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  371 

were  things  that  you  could  n't  tell  —  reservations 
even  in  Ann's  story. 

Claudia  held  some  flowers  she  had  gathered  as  she 
walked  —  primroses,  the  wood  was  full  of  them. 

Without  giving  a  thought  to  what  she  did,  but 
conscious  of  the  need  to  do  homage,  she  laid  them 
at  the  boy's  feet.  The  primrose  is  rather  a  scentless 
flower.  It  was  here  that  the  boy  must  have  spoken 
aloud.  Incense  was  what  was  demanded;  some- 
thing with  a  sweet  savour.  Without  knowing  that 
it  was  he  who  had  spoken  or  that  anything  had  been 
spoken,  and  with  no  other  intention  than  of  sup- 
plying this  fragrance  that  seemed  to  be  lacking, 
Claudia  added  a  leaf  or  two  of  sweet-briar  to  her 
offering. 

What  the  third  day  gave  her  was  the  appearing 
of  Ann  before  her  with  a  rapt  expression,  appre- 
hensive, frightened  almost;  deadly  pale,  though 
she  seemed  to  have  been  hurrying,  and  holding  in 
her  hand  a  withered  leaf. 

"Claudia!" 

"Yes,  Ann." 

"Claudia!" 

Ann's  voice,  thick,  hushed,  seemed  to  fail  her. 

"She  knows  I've  been  there,"  Claudia  thought 
to  herself.  "What  on  earth  did  I  put  the  things 
there  for  if  I  was  n't  going  to  tell  her?  And  why 
did  n't  I  tell  her?  I  knew  I  was  intruding  —  that's 
why.  And  she,  she  thinks  I  have  been  prying  — 


372  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

waiting  till  her  back  was  turned.  Oh,  what  made 
me?" 

The  next  moment  she  was  gasping. 

4 '  He 's  come  back, ' '  Ann  was  saying.  ' '  He 's  some- 
where about." 

Claudia  flushed  to  the  roots  of  her  hair.  But  she 
did  not  lose  her  head.  She  did  some  very  clear  think- 
ing. She  must  tell  her,  of  course.  But  she  hesitated, 
thinking,  thinking.  The  moment  passed  when  she 
could  have  told  her.  She  was  committed.  She  saw 
that  she  was  committed. 

"What  do  you  mean,  Ann?" 

She  was  temporizing,  but  she  knew  that  she  was 
committed. 

"I  found  this.  It's  his  sign  to  me.  He  put  the 
same  sort  of  leaf  —  smell  it,  Claudia  —  once  before 
where  I  found  this.  It's  his  sign,  his  sign."  She 
burst  into  tears.  "And  do  you  know  what  it  means? 
Yes,  in  the  silly  Language  of  Flowers.  There  was 
one,  I  remembered  in  the  little  encyclopaedia  on  my 
desk  and  I  've  looked  it  up  like  any  foolish  serv- 
ant-girl." She  smiled  through  her  tears,  wringing 
Claudia's  heart.  "I'm  as  foolish  as  any  servant- 
girl  —  not  half  as  wise  as  one  servant-girl,  who  did 
know  what  she  wanted.  It  means  —  he  does  n't 
know  —  to  him  it's  just  something  that  he  knew  I 
should  recognize  —  it  means  ...  oh,  Claudia  .  .  .  '  I 
wound  to  heal." 

I  wound  to  heal  .  .  . 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  373 

That  settled  it  indeed.  Claudia  was  committed  to 
silence  and  to  the  purpose  which  had  come  of  her 
thinkings.  She  was  going  to  stake  everything  on 
her  faith  in  Coram,  now.  She  was  writing  to  him, 
knowing  that  he  would  understand,  and  knowing 
that  he  would  not  fail  her  —  or  this  time  fail  him- 
self. 

"If  he's  been  there  he  will  come  again,"  she  said 
to  Ann. 

And  that  —  though  to  keep  the  iron  hot  for  him 
till  he  came,  she  would  not  if  she  had  conceived  it 
to  be  necessary,  or  expedient,  have  struck  even  at 
repeating  his  '  sign '  for  him  —  was  as  far  as  she  had 
ventured  in  guile. 

"You  asked  me  to  help  you,"  Claudia  wrote.  "I 
am  told  you  are  going  abroad.  If  this  is  so,  and  if 
you  think  there  has  been  any  misunderstanding,  let 
me  say  one  word  to  you  before  you  go.  I  don't  my- 
self know  quite  what  it  means.  I  give  it  to  you  for 
what  it  is  worth,  or  what  it  may  mean  to  you,  as 
the  clairvoyant  or  the  medium  who  says,  '  I  get  so- 
and-so.'  What  I  get  is  a  Statue  —  yes,  and  for  your 
guidance,  Sundown.  Two  words  I  see,  as  I  write 
them.  I  repeat  I  don't  know,  at  least  only  guess, 
what  one  of  them  means.  But  if  a  tangle  could  be 
unravelled  anywhere,  it  would  be  there,  at  the 
Statue's  feet,  and  —  for  your  guidance  again  —  it 
would  be  there  and  soon.  Oh,  at  once  if  at  all!  You 
will  act  on  this,  or  not  act  upon  it,  as  you  wish.  It 


374  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

is  all  the  aid  (or  indication  of  how  you  may  aid  your- 
self) that  it  is  in  my  power  to  give  you." 

She  did  not  let  Ann  out  of  her  sight  the  next  day, 
nor  the  next.  Ann  was  restless  as  a  bird  kept  from 
the  nest.  ''Let  him  wait"  was  what  Claudia  hoped 
Ann  might  suppose  her  silent  persistence  to  mean. 
That  would  be  just  such  wise  advice  as  it  would  have 
been  conceived  that  one  so  wise  (as  Claudia  knew 
herself  to  be!)  would  be  likely  to  have  offered  if 
Coram  had  been,  indeed,  there  to  be  waiting.  Ann 
got  through  two  days.  On  the  morning  of  the  third, 
Claudia  then  having  received  the  answer  to  her  let- 
ter, Claudia  contrived  that  Ann  should  take  her  to 
Lower  Redmayne  to  see  the  alterations.  There  Ann 
learnt,  as  Claudia  intended  that  she  should  learn, 
that  Coram  was  going  abroad. 

After  that  nothing  would  have  held  Ann.  But 
Claudia,  her  full  purpose  achieved,  when  she  had 
with  considerable  difficulty  buttonholed  her  till 
lateish  in  the  afternoon,  had  no  further  wish  to  hold 
her.  She  allowed  herself  to  be  shaken  off,  or  given 
the  slip,  and  from  behind  the  curtains  of  the  fateful 
window  of  the  boudoir,  she  watched  Ann  start. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  years  fell  from  Ann  as  she  entered  the  wood. 
The  weight  of  the  years  that  fell  from  her  was  in  sub- 
stance the  weight  of  the  last  two  years,  but  other 
years  fell  from  her  also.  She  was  a  girl  once  more  with 
her  life  before  her.  She  felt  like  Christian  when  the 
burden  has  fallen  from  his  back.  Nothing  had  hap- 
pened, but  everything  has  happened.  Everything 
was  as  it  had  been,  but  everything  was  changed. 
Coram  stood  just  where  he  had  stood  all  along,  but 
Claudia  fighting  his  battle  for  him  had  won  it,  the 
unhappy  Lucy  Edget,  who  was  the  happy  Lucy  Til- 
let,  helping.  The  change  was  in  Ann. 

Profound,  the  change  in  Ann.  Had  she,  too,  under- 
gone that  conversion  which  —  though  only  for  what 
it  postulated  and  perhaps  unconsciously  implied  — 
had  so  deeply  offended  her  when  she  had  heard  it 
spoken  of  by  her  lover,  as  applicable,  with  all  that 
it  might  stand  for,  to  his  own  state  and  case?  She 
saw  everything  newly.  She  might,  indeed,  be  said  to 
have  been  born  again.  For  she  wanted  to  give  now, 
and  to  ask  nothing.  Pride  no  longer  mattered.  She 
knew,  at  last,  that,  ready  as  she  had  supposed  her- 
self, she  had  not  been  ready  at  all.  She  had  come  to 
him  to  receive,  not  to  bestow.  She  had  asked  balm 
for  her  own  wound,  seeing  only  her  own  wound, 
ignoring  his,  and  withholding  the  balm  which  it  had 


376  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

been  in  her  power  to  administer.  She  walked  now  in 
a  sort  of  glad  humility,  wishing  truly  not  to  be 
ministered  unto,  but  to  minister. 

Once  more  the  wood  received  her.  She  heard  the 
cuckoo  call.  The  day  was  athrob  with  his  note  as 
that  other  day  when  she  had  started  out,  for  what 
was  to  prove,  though  she  had  not  known  it  then,  her 
Great  Adventure.  Primroses  were  everywhere.  She 
paused  where  they  grew  thickest,  picked  her  bunch 
quickly,  and  continued  her  way.  The  spring  was 
moving  joyously  to  summer;  she  with  the  spring. 

She  entered  the  bridle  path.  The  wood  then  was 
piled  up  each  side  of  her  like  the  waters  of  the 
Red  Sea  —  to  which  Claudia  had  once  likened  the 
cloven  flock  of  sheep  through  the  midst  of  which 
the  carriage  had  driven  on  another  day  which  was 
memorable.  Her  path  —  she  knew  it!  —  led,  even 
as  the  path  cleared  for  the  Israelites,  to  a  promised 
land. 

So  she  walked  eagerly,  and  though  she  had  set 
out  in  fear,  and  though  she  hurried  still  as  if  im- 
pelled to  haste,  she  walked  without  fear.  She  did 
not  know,  as  Claudia  did  know,  that  she  was  in- 
deed going  to  meet  her  lover.  She  felt,  perhaps, 
that  she  was  going  to  meet  him,  but  it  was  enough 
for  her,  since  the  peace  of  the  wood  had  descended 
upon  her  and  lapped  her  round,  that  she  was  going 
to  give  the  answering  sign  to  that  which  she  be- 
lieved to  be  his.  Her  flowers,  with  the  sprig  of  sweet- 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  377 

briar  which  she  should  add  to  them  in  the  circle, 
would  say  for  her  all  that  was  needful.  She  strained 
forward.  But,  under  her  haste,  a  peace  of  mind,  the 
absence  of  all  apprehension,  and  an  upspringing, 
uplifting,  all-pervading  sense  of  security  told  her 
that  this  day  for  her  was  to  be  a  day  of  days.  Not 
years  only  had  dropped  from  her  as  she  entered 
the  wood. 

Claudia  had  delayed  her.  The  sun  was  getting  low 
now  in  the  heavens.  The  tops  of  the  trees  were 
gilded. 

The  moment  came  when  she  could  see  the  Waiting 
Boy.  He  looked  towards  her  down  the  long,  nar- 
row avenue.  He  was  waiting  as  she  had  so  often  seen 
him  waiting  with  the  eyes  of  her  body,  and  as  she 
had  so  much  oftener  seen  him  waiting  with  the  even 
clearer  eyes  of  her  mind.  He  was  waiting  for  her, 
whomsoever  else  he  had  waited  for  in  the  years  of 
all  his  waiting. 

He  seemed  to  her  to  lean  more  intently  towards 
her  .  .  . 

She  reached  the  circle.  On  the  threshold  she 
paused;  her  breath  held;  her  hands  to  her  breast. 
The  circle  was  not  empty.  Not  alone  the  Waiting 
Boy  who  waited.  Coram  was  standing  where  she 
had  seen  him  stand  when  it  was  only  a  bird  that 
he  held.  She  knew  then  that  she  was  indeed  to 
see  him,  with  his  son  and  hers  in  his  arms.  As 
he  saw  her  he  opened  them  now.  She  stumbled 


378  THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD 

forward,  swaying  almost  as  before,  but  this  time  to 
safety.   They  closed  round  her. 
Now  let  the  joy-bells  ring! 

Up  the  scale,  down  the  scale,  rang  the  fairy  bells 
in  the  circle.  Every  bluebell  in  the  wood  might  have 
been  swinging  his  head.  The  circle  was  aclang  with 
the  fairy  bells;  loud  as  the  bells  of  St.  Clement's 
and  St.  Martin's,  deep  as  the  big  bell  of  Bow.  Noth- 
ing was  owed  any  more.  The  last  even  of  the  five 
farthings  paid.  Had  there  been  any  debt?  So  the 
joy-bells  rang.  But  the  ringing  of  joy-bells  works 
up  to  a  clash,  and  the  clash  is  made  up  of  discords, 
is,  indeed,  sweet  bells  jangled.  The  clash  heard  by 
itself  would  have  a  sinister  sound  to  strike  terror 
into  the  soul.  The  clash  for  Coram,  came,  indeed, 
as  it  were,  by  itself,  the  deafening,  dismaying  clash, 
in  the  moment  when  Ann,  telling  him  of  his  son, 
lifted  perforce  the  last  veil  which  hid  from  him  the 
extent  of  the  suffering  he  had  caused  her.  His  pun- 
ishment, if  you  demand  punishment  for  him,  came 
then  —  in  full  measure,  pressed  down,  running  over. 
If  a  lifetime  may  be  concentrated  into  the  compass 
of  a  few  moments  as  we  reckon  time,  he  knew  then 
a  lifetime  of  remorse  and  contrition  and  self-abase- 
ment. He  floundered  in  deep  waters,  sinking,  drown- 
ing. He  descended  into  hell.  But  Ann  was  above 
him,  to  stretch  out  her  hand  to  him  and,  as  she  had 
wished,  to  minister  to  him. 

"It  is  over,"  she  whispered  to  him,  supporting 


THE  STATUE  IN  THE  WOOD  379 

him.  "  I  Ve  been  able  to  bear  it,  and  I  'm  glad  now 
to  have  borne  it.  You  would  have  borne  your  share 
if  you  could.  What 's  left  to  bear  —  for  there 's  some- 
thing which  nothing  can  undo  —  we  're  going  to  bear 
together.  That's  it,  is  n't  it?" 

"Is  n't  it?"  she  asked. 

He  had  had  a  shock  which  he  would  need  time  to 
recover  from.  But  that  was  it,  and,  knowing  what 
she  knew,  she  had  no  real  fear.  The  bells,  brought 
to  silence  by  their  own  clash,  would  ring  out  once 
more.  Johnny,  as  far  as  he  could  be  safe,  was  safe. 
Like  Lucy  she  might  allow  herself  to  face  an  un- 
merited happiness. 

He  wanted  to  see  his  son. 

Ann  picked  up  her  flowers  which  lay  strewn  on 
the  ground  where  they  had  dropped  from  her  hand. 
She  laid  them  at  the  feet  of  the  statue,  adding  to 
them  (to  his  mystification  then,  but  to  his  subse- 
quent complete  understanding)  a  sprig  of  sweetbriar. 


THE   END 


(Cbe  ttfrertf&e 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .  S   .  A 


I  HIM  IIIH  HI  [|  Jim  mil  HI   HI 

A     000127325     9 


